This is extremely rad

Incredibly, the social media ban bill being voted on in the Massachusetts legislature is even worse and more draconian than many similar bills that have passed in red states.

It contains “parental surveillance” measures so controversial they were removed from KOSA

unworkable & unconstitutional

A frustrating and empty statement for someone with a mandate for radical change when access to healthcare for his trans constituents sits as one of the first electoral promises so far to prove hollow.

His whole political project hinges on overcoming tired, useless "see you, hear you" garbage.

Or it's your sign to start a play-by-post game.

All while remaining squarely something I could confidently recommend to someone who wasn't previously familiar with MTG, too. Thought it was pretty impressively done.

Hey, I wrote this piece!

I was, uh, understandably very angry after Kansas. I'm still angry now. I hope you are too.

A lot of myself went into this one. Please read and enjoy.

-R

It is as bad as it sounds, and freedom to read folks have been anticipating this now for years.

Make your phone calls. Send your emails.

excited to hear tech companies will now be allowed to build their own power plants for their data centers. i am sure the makers of "the app that tells kids to kill themselves" will responsibly operate coal plants

those who know Massachusetts police will find this entirely unsurprising

I look forward to our governor once again reminding everyone "Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state," her favorite quote since January 2025.

I am 100% sure that have been more articles about youth gender surgeries than actual youth gender surgeries in 2026. When is someone going to reckon with the fact that ‘pivoting’ on this issue means signing on to a moral panic?

It is helpful and instructive to be reminded that the main grievance many arch-Dems have with today's ICE is its tone. Their outrage is that white liberals can no longer sleep through no-knock raids.

If we want to abolish ICE and end the violence of the border, our fight is bigger than Trump's GOP.

Wanting something along these lines is what got me to check out Imperium Maledictum. Player sympathies make these the most fun and interesting lanes for a lot of tables.

hello and welcome to the political genius exam. here is question one. which is a more compelling message:

- the president is sending armies to occupy cities and kidnap and kill people and your town could be next
- a meal at the cheesecake factory that previously cost $100 now costs $104.9

That's re balance or power-level thoughts on the card, at least.

The community reaction to the ban inclines me to think unbanning it (at least any time soon) would be a mistake, though. Imo it would feel less like addressing format health or balance than it would vindication for awful behavior.

I think the we should embrace the fact that Sol Ring as EDH's mascot is basically license to be ridiculous. It's the format for doing huge, splashy things, and huge, splashy enablers can and probably must come along for the ride.

What Lotus et al power out is for r0, the card itself feels fine.

the confirmation of contemporary transphobia as a political movement has been the brainchild of a boys club made up of some of the most disgusting monsters in recent memory to explicitly keep trans women disenfranchised so as to subjugate and exploit us for their own sexual gain is like

a lot, dawg

Brave to wish for new minions in this particular moment of the game's development.

Agreed. The *vast* majority of balance or play pattern concerns can and should be resolved through rule zero conversations. The more aggressively the format is managed, the weaker r0 gets, which then demands more aggressive format management.

"Pool's huge, get weird, have fun" is close to enough.

No, they've been very popular. Patrons sometimes have trouble finding a particular character in the PAC, but I think that's more on the PAC than the items themselves.

We have both in our children's collection as part of our library of things.

note that it’s not about the gun owner’s whiteness per se, but what the far right believes he’s allowed to do with that whiteness.

being terrified of POC and willing to kill them/their allies is fine, acquittable. being an ally peacefully protecting POC/their allies is not fine, murderable

I think that's part of the point. The more distance there is between the party line and obvious, undeniable reality, the broader the license they grant.

"Don't trust your lying eyes" serves as both carte blanche for state violence and chills anyone risking their life to document their atrocities.

They're why I became a librarian.

I tailspin a bit thinking about how many new/digital library services catapult exactly that data into the private sector, as if that's somehow safer.

"You don't know me yet.

But you're going to."

This would be embarrassing enough even without the Sephiroth impersonation, oof.

We're at least one SL away from *everywhere*

Sorry, nearly meaningless mechanical text. What I've heard at least has been folks saying that the legend rule should go to increase the playability of legends outside of edh.

Make it trinket text, with how legend-dense UBs are

I think the idea here is that Standard gets one annual B&R, and an "emergency" standard B&R would be stitched onto one of the other scheduled B&Rs, as opposed to just randomly dropping say, today.

This makes sense, because ceding that fascists are right about crime and immigration but off slightly on methodology has historically been super effective.

meanwhile if you ask trans people what their favorite topic to talk about is you get, like, a hobby