Normal democracies don't let politicians draw electoral maps, have partisan judiciaries or redistrict so as to produce safe seats for parties. Many have multi party systems and more representative and proportional voting systems too!
Absolutely incredible.
NASA Astronaut Reid Wiseman, who commanded Artemis II, took this footage from the far side of the Moon with his iPhone.
Watch with sound on.
"An object that never tires can cover ground much slower than any athletic human can sprint, and significantly slower than the fastest humans can run a mile, so we let it keep going until its speed sounded impressive."
Since 2016 people have been demanding that Democrats manifest a pan-ideological United Front coalition against Trumpism while refusing to grapple with the fact that vanishingly few conservatives have shown the slightest interest in such a project.
This whiplash where the president terrifies the world for a few days with unhinged threats and then says “never mind” and then there’s this implication that anyone scared of his unhinged threats was overreacting is very domestic abuse but make it a country.
2 Spooky 2 Science!
Sunday, April 19th will actually be our _second_ time recording a live Spooky Science Lab episode at the Flying Fox Tavern and we're thrilled to be back!
What strange-but-true science will be revealed before your very eyes? Join us and find out! More info at the link!
I honestly suspect that he vacillates like this in order to push what people will accept as a norm. The news cycle has moved on from him kidnapping the president of Venezuela, or threatening to invade Greenland, or colonizing Palestine or— it’s not distraction.
It’s abuser behaviour.
I made sacrifices in the gym. I maintained a balanced diet and drank plenty of water. I spent money straightening my smile. I invested in proper skin care. I saved money and cleaned up my credit. All for a bitch in a diaper to come along a pick a fight with the wrong ppl. What is life?
My brain is particularly fixating today on the specific group of enablers who said "this may be wildly illegal and wrong in principle, but I like that he's doing it to someone I hate, so let's give him a pass this time and see where it goes."
It doesn't matter what other powers they nominally have on paper, including lawmaking. A legislature that doesn't control the checkbook is impotent, and an executive who does is a tyrant.
I'm a bit of a broken record on this, but usurping the power of the purse isn't just one constitutional violation among all the many others. It is, uniquely and singularly, the death of constitutional government altogether. Game over, end of story, you now live in an autocracy.
This is an actual post. This is not funny. This is beyond desperate. This is a deeply unwell man who doesn’t belong anywhere near the levers of power. Every member of his cabinet and Congress is complicit in not demanding his removal now.
you know the way "why did the Roman Empire fall" and "what are the causes of the First World War" are big questions that sort of function like Rorsharch tests, allowing people to debate ultimately inexplicable moments in history? "Why did no one stop Trump" a decent future shout for the third.
I know this and you know this and we all know this but sometimes you gotta say the obvious thing out loud (so to speak) just so you don’t feel alone or crazy: our president is a deeply unwell and utterly vile man who shouldn’t be in charge of driving a golf cart much less the free world.
Isn’t it weird how “AI literacy” being pushed on students isn’t about learning how it works, the cost of how it works, learning to spot disinformation, media and tech literacy. But instead is just “employers will like it if you get it to write your emails :)”
I said it back in early 2025 but Elon Musk seizing the Treasury's payment systems and the federal payroll systems from career bureaucrats was one of the most important steps in achieving Trump's coup against our Constitution and no one was paying attention
Okay so here’s my actual Bluesky-is-dying hypothesis:
The entire web is dying. Users aren’t going from BlueSky to another site (x/insta/threada/tiktok). Users are going to chatbots.
I know traffic to news sites has cratered (like 90%). My hunch is traffic to all the social platforms is down too.
The parable of the fish that does not understand it needs water until it is plucked out of the sea is a good analogy for a US pro- as well as anti-Trump elite that over generations came to so take America's position as a global power for granted that it no longer understands what makes it possible
Shout-out to every other Gen Xer that was holding their breath the entire time for the first five mintues of the launch
For
r e a s o n s
love it when the rocket removes its clothes in order to enter space Nude
My thinking on this case is that Clarence Thomas should have been removed from office immediately when we found out his wife had plotted to overthrow our constitutional republic
America did not meet the universal adult suffrage criteria of democratic governance until 1965. Gatorade is the exact same age as American democracy.
“How is diversity a strength” well it’s better than racist dumbass homogeneity, you see
They started an illegal war of choice during an ideological, racist and sexist purge led by right wing podcasters calling targets on a sieg heiling billionaire’s website, believing their superior genes and brutality would lead to rapid victory and are now facing defeat bsky.app/profile/dunc...
Most of Trump’s policies knock out load-bearing pillars we built in the early 1900s - Geneva conventions, vaccines, free trade, women’s right to vote
So it’s a nice twist to go back to the 1700s and undo freedom of navigation and law of the sea. Mixes it up. Keeps it fresh, you know
1/ It's not just that unilaterally paying TSA agents is illegal.
It's that Trump has now repeatedly undermined the core of the congressional power of the purse. He's not spending money that has been appropriated by law (impoundments) and he's spending money that has not been appropriated.
At this point I don't wonder how much insider trading is going on. I wonder how much policy is being made with the purpose of insider trading on it.
A year later, I'll say: we will never know— we will never have the faintest idea— how much money is getting made in insider trading windfalls from people in Trump's circles who have an hour of notice about the chaotic swings in stuff Trump just *says* about the war with Iran.
This is not a failure of Democrats to compromise, or a disagreement between multiple sides, or anything else. It's one party, which controls <the entire federal government, including both chambers of Congress> totally punting on democratic governance & sending armed paramilitaries into airports.
Again, a normal pro-democracy political party, with governing majorities in both chambers of the parliament, would simply pass a budget & fund the government, rather than allowing the chief executive to send untrained armed paramilitaries into the country’s airports to cosplay at airport security.
