one of the ways the mid to late 20th century political world has distorted the historical memories of even sophisticated observers is in the idea that you can achieve major transformations of american political life through something like bipartisan consensus
The implicit media consensus is that urban voters should not be able to overrule rural voters, but that rural voters should be able to overrule urban voters, an assumption so axiomatic and unquestionable that nobody even understands they're making it.
Historical footnote: F-102A fighters (depicted in the advertisement below) could carry two Falcon AIM-26A air-to-air guided nuclear missile (armed with the .25-kiloton W54 warhead). About 1,900 were manufactured (by Hughes Electronics) and deployed from 1961 until 1972. bsky.app/profile/atom...
I am constantly reminded of C.S. Lewis' observation that a "sure mark of evil" is when something only avoids being comic by being terrible.
And while you're at it, ask the same questions of those saying America is a Christian nation.
Can't talk. Adding Jamie Farr to the list of "What if Columbo could regenerate like Doctor Who"
After seeing the aftermath of Abdul El-Sayed asking Olivia Reingold what she meant by a Jewish state, I became convinced it's a question that should be asked more often. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
Did I just argue with a joke? Part of a Bluesky educational series
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
4/20-21/1852 — The Woman’s New York State Temperance Society Convention is held in Rochester, NY. The founding meeting was called by ElizabethCadyStanton; 500+ wmn attended. The society was formed bcz temperance groups did not permit wmn members #womenshistory #womensrights #gov #law #LawSky #PolSky
RFK Jr. just said HHS is "cleaning up the risk pool" (i.e., people who are unhealthy) to bring down healthcare costs.
Germany has surpassed the rest of us on the politics of gender bathroom signs. Operating on a level the North American mind (mine) cannot comprehend
We asked people who lived in homeless encampments that were cleared out in city “sweeps” to write about what object was the hardest for them to lose.
“They took my baby pictures and my moms obituaries,” a man in California wrote.
(Published Dec. 2024)
Conservatives think the state should protect them from the traumatizing experience of encountering people unlike them. For some reason this never came up in the heyday of “snowflake,” “trigger warning” or “safe space” discourse bsky.app/profile/kiss...
Empire collapse
I had the strangest dream. I dreamed that my shoes—my comfortable, unfashionable wool shoes—were pivoting to AI. "But you're a shoe company," I said. "Just go out of business! Keep your dignity!" My shoes thanked me politely for the great question and then tried to walk me off a bridge. That was how I knew that their pivot to AI was complete. From Allbirds to Allbirds (see, that L is an 1). Maybe I've cracked, I said to myself. Maybe this is the piece of Al news that has finally broken my spirit for good.
www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
I bet you could get New Yorkers behind a plan to annex Columbia and make it a public college if you promised to name it SUNY Bodegas
Tucker Carlson: I'II be tormented for a long time by the fact that I played a role in getting Donald Trump elected. We're implicated in this. I misled people.
It'd sure be nice if Kamala Harris' campaign organization wouldn't constantly promote Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Megyn Kelly, and whatnot. But oh well.
Seeming silence from Congresspeople on this issue after some initial promise is disappointing and encourages compliance with illegal orders/discourages non-compliance as th case(s) may be.
Servicemembers need to know there will be consequences for warcrimes & that dissent will be protected/rewarded
steyer was known for his staunch environmentalism and his support for an obscure nonprofit known as the earth-trisolaris organization
Plenty of criticism on the right of the #SCOTUS leaker and the Times’s reporting, but has anyone actually responded to the argument that Roberts’s assessment of “irreparable harm” and his refusal to balance the equities is completely inconsistent with his subsequent behavior in all the Trump cases?
Again, Jurgen Habermas—RIP, King—wrote Alex Karp and said I will no longer be your dissertation adviser BY FAX—because your ideas are mediocre. Nothing has changed.
happy birthday, weed
The pasta-sauce company has partnered with the nonprofit StoryCorps on a device designed to record family conversations around the table and save them for all time. www.wired.com/story/prego-...
After Netanyahu's office claimed that Peter Magyar had invited him to visit Hungary, the PM-elected says that he will enforce all ICC arrest warrants once the country re-enters the Rome Statute.
[Hungary will] "have a legal obligation to enforce the ICC rulings and I'm sure [Netanyahu] knows this".
If your elected government representative has said the words “Hasan Piker” but not the word “genocide” out loud this year, then it’s time to elect someone else
two related thoughts: i suspect that many tech companies get away with utterly ratshit, incompetent leadership because you've got a fat middle section of competence holding up the roof
AI is an existential threat to that middle section of the workforce, and will lay bare a lot of incompetence
A tweet from Pope Leo XIV that reads: “When simulation becomes the norm, it weakens the human capacity for discernment. As a result, our social bonds close in upon themselves, forming self-referential circuits that no longer expose us to reality. We thus come to live within bubbles, impermeable to one another. Feeling threatened by anyone who is different, we grow unaccustomed to encounter and dialogue. In this way, polarization, conflict, fear and violence spread. What is at stake is not merely the risk of error, but a transformation in our very relationship with truth.”
Apparently the Pope has read Baudrillard.
Oh
