Music. Lyrics. Biometric Security Software. "Why this is Hell, nor am I out of it."
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Old Soviet joke for today: A man walks into a newsstand every day, looks around, and leaves. After a long time of this, the owner says “Can I help you find something?” “I’m looking for the obituaries.” “The obituaries are in the back of the newspaper, comrade.” “Not the one I’m looking for.”
That's his semantic misdirection: "experts" are often self-proclaimed; *scientists* do work that can be *tested* and *verified*.
When it's obvious the case is going to appeal, and the matter turns on "what exactly is the law," it's to avoid a pointless stop/go/stop/go. The exception is if preserving the status quo will cause "irreparable harm," such as deportation.
This one is only for Blueskyers of a certain age.
This explains why tfg is MIA—he read this tweet and got so excited he had a heart attack
I hear they found one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Faw...
Alison Bechdel's latest book, SPENT, features a character who makes seed art. I thought Bechdel made that up for laughs 😳
Never not a good time for Molly Ivins
For those who forgot, like me: this is Jodi Ernst, the one who responded to "Medicaid cuts are bad, people will die" with "We're all going to die." And then doubled down the next day, walking through a graveyard while ridiculing those who had called her out. tbh, I suspect substance abuse.
♥️ Rachel Rising!
The New Yorker…
It may be a fad, in which case it's not worth arguing over; it may become generally accepted, in which case it's not worth arguing over. I do sympathize. My friends use a wide variety of terms, some of which I dislike. I do my best to shake off my irritation and move on, but it's not always easy.
Good catch, it's not real. It's basically a story from last year, and leaves out an unfortunate recent development: Judge deals blow to Arizona case over 2020 Republican electors www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
ICE took 2 firefighters OFF THE FUCKING FIRE LINE!?
I thought the point of the OP was: "We need good *partisan* media." Ask an irrelevant question, get an irrelevant answer. And factually: Yes, the NYT dropping a couple of columnists would be nice; but No, it's not as significant as effective Dem messaging.
I want to draw (more) attention to Mamdani's scavenger hunt. 500 game cards: $150 100 gallons of lemonade: $500 3000 people showing up, and many thousands more following along at home: priceless
It just occurred to me: all those things (including what I suggested) take years, but the recent NYC measures are fast: reducing space for cars, forcing slower speeds, and (hopefully) lowering or eliminating mass transit fares.
Sounds like this matters most in cities? and then the solution is improved mass transit?
"GPT 4o violated" implies "by design, GPT 4o violated", and therefore the corporate entity that approved the design is liable.
PLONK! I'd forgotten...
Gift link www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/c...
21st Century Tenniel energy
Is this...backing into socialism??
Time to start burning effigies in every town square Con: He'll send in troops Pro: He'll get apoplexy
Same!
I see the confusion. You say "premise" when perhaps you mean "predicate" or "attribute." In any case, if the predicate/attribute/premise/etc is too common, the point is so weak it seems no point at all: 1) All fascists have heads 2) Having a head is a [premise] of fascism
I did the circuit anyway, just for fun. (The 'prize' was a photo op with Mamdani, which was all anyone expected anyway.)
Major expenses: Printing 500 game cards Lemonade for 500 people That's it! No ads, no posters, no maps, no signage, no equipment rental.
The clues made these points: 1) Wouldn't be the youngest, that was Hugh Grant 2) Wants free public transport, but so did Giuliani 3) Is DSA, but so was David Dinkins
In "On Creating Works of Lasting Duration," Brecht says that a good story with irreducible problems will be ever irresistible to performers and directors: "Useful works require people."
The Salem witch trials stopped only when the accusations reached levels of absurdity that no one could deny. We are not there yet, alas.
TIL a gerrymander that flips when demographics evolve in a foreseeable way is called a "dummymander"
The campaign expected maybe 500 people—that's how many cards they printed. But *thousands* showed up.
The ice cream stand at Union Square told me business has been brisk :)
Destination #5 isn't lower Manhattan...
When they ran out there were thousands of people left (my guess is around 3000)
I didn't and I voted for him 🤷🏻
So many people showed up that they ran out of cards. My educated guess is that there were 3000 people more than expected.
What if I told you that "suffragettes" is a misogynistic diminution of "suffragists," and is deprecated usage? It would be 100% correct and yet (usually) pointlessly pedantic and annoying. I hate the "Third Way" cult, but picking the one clear exception on their list is silly. Know your audience.
What if I told you that "suffragettes" is a misogynistic diminution of "suffragists," and is deprecated usage? It would be 100% correct and yet (in most contexts) pointlessly pedantic and annoying. I hate the self-styled "third way," but picking the one obvious exception on the list is silly.
Then how can it be its *premise*?
Except that is not "the very premise of fascism." Different legal privileges resulting from "circumstances of birth" describes nearly every known form of society.
what
this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like
Although I hate over-processed language as well, I don't think it's employed for appearance's sake, I think it's sincere. Perhaps it's an attempt to build a shelter from the daily downpour of doublespeak and newspeak?
Giving major Order of the Golden Dawn vibes 🤔 (I'm mostly thinking of Aleister Crowley's tarot deck)
Source: danielnorth.blogspot.com/2007/05/dont...
"The Dalai Lama is an awesome old dude and a killer teacher. But he’s got like a dozen bodyguards around him when he’s travelling. What do you think would happen if some butthead pulls a gun on His Holiness? [...] a bodyguard sees this dweeb with a gun and he’s gonna pop a cap in his ass"
Both? This isn't about MSNOW? 🫣
He starts to dive even before the kick, that's Batman-level reflexes.
I know what this means and I, too, am happy for you!
Good news! This manuscript has, in fact, been digitized and now we can all enjoy the *checks notes* "naked dolphin windsurfing", presumably to the dulcet tones of Dufay's Kyrie from the Missa Se la face ay pale
They're certainly flirting with the idea. They're so high on their own propaganda that they believe themselves invincible.
An Immodest Proposal
One measure of a personalist political system is that the President's personal criminal lawyers now hold the top two positions at DOJ. One of them, Blanche, has arrested Trump's political opponents while offering Ghislane Maxwell more favorable treatment.
Please don't spread disinfo about the polling machines, they are NOT "hackable" in any meaningful way.
THE GOV'T IS COMING FOR YOUR BEER
has entered the chat
man I got off the metro and found a girl unconscious with her friend sobbing and she was asking me *not* to call for help and it’s like who can blame them right now?
People hurting themselves through stupidity costs everyone. Also children don't understand warning labels.
Kelp, kelp, nothing but kelp
I have some experience in pharma factories. Every change (to either hardware or software) requires intensive documentation and testing. I recently saw a machine on a factory floor running Windows XP because the hardware it was driving could not be replaced.
The government is now so inherently unreliable that what one hopes to be unalloyed good news must first be rigorously inspected for signs of corruption and grift. Last year's paranoia is this year's realism.
The undead corpse of the 3/5 compromise has risen from the grave
E.T.A. Hoffman ftw
Just to be precise: LibGen did not scrape anything and is not the evildoer being challenged. LibGen is a database of ebooks. It's not a corporation and can't easily be shut down. Several companies have scraped this database of unlawfully shared material to train their LLMs. THEY are being sued.
No, it was invented in the late 1960s.
HEY SOMETIMES THERE IS UNCOMPLICATED GOOD NEWS It's rare but it happens!!! If you think this is a big and great deal (it is) please consider donating directly to the Florida Freedom to Read Project www.fftrp.org/donate
I've lost track - is the ruling for or against LSoP?
Whoa there, just pointing to an out-of-thread reply. Not every exchange is blood sport.
What is this from?
Eye doctor starting me off easy
Maybe relevant: starting in the 80s, rent stabilized apartments would be de-regulated when their occupant's income passed a certain threshold. This was a *disaster* for renters, but I guess for Cuomo it...wait, does he even live here?
First day. After that they will hang on your every sentence.
I am a *lawyer who practices federal law.* Several times a week I see a headline that makes me think "there's no way the President can do that, right?" and I look into it and it turns out that maybe he can because Congress ceded some of its power in the What's the Worst That Could Happen Act of 1983
Oh it is, it is
Sure, following even human interest fluff and "news of the weird" can feel like a Daliesque nightmare
I'm not sure what's obscure here. When a neighbor starts "investing" in lottery tickets, another leans into MDMA, and another is anorexic, then *we* (the neighborhood) are all in trouble, though most are not doing any of those things.
No one here is harassing her. We are considering whether this is akin to gambling addiction, eating disorders, and substance abuse, which can also appear to make people happy, even genuinely euphoric—until the crash.
I'm not having a problem. Thank you for all the hard work. ♥️
Bowser: "I think I speak for all Americans -- we don't believe it's legal to use the American military against American citizens on American soil."
I was saddened to see that some early Vonnegut definitely went bad, of which the best example is "Harrison Bergeron."
It's been waiting on my shelf for ages, thanks for the rec.
Context tho: the ask is specifically for YA readers interested in SF. Sure, one could read Achebe at 10 and Dostoevsky at 15, but what classic SF is that deep? Much of it is as reactionary as Ayn Rand.
There are great books for the present, and great books for the ages. "A Canticle for Leibowitz"? Still good. "Starship Troopers"? Not so much.
Been there (i.e. refused to implement evil idea). Eventually upper management got themselves indicted for other stuff.
Your response is extremely weird. I have often politely suggested improvements to the prose of my various attorneys, and they have often used those suggestions. I'm a writer; I know my limits, I know my strengths, I trust my lawyer to reject my ideas if they're dumb.
Can't tell if we're agreeing or disagreeing? I'm saying Dems have only won as often as they have because they cultivated a special connection to southern whites; that Carter and Clinton were chosen for that connection; and it's a problem because that block is dependably reactionary.
Fifty-one years ago today.
The whole point of custom tailoring and dressmaking is to show *every* body to its best advantage.
For my friends who suffer from migraines:
I may try this based on your rec, but 🚩🚩🚩: "Then we do a low, slow boil in a special type of ultrapure “Kangan Water” which has smaller water molecules that provide a more thorough extraction."
I note with regret that even in '32 the Dems were dependent on their lock on the Jim Crow south, and stopped winning when Nixon broke that lock. It took the combined disasters of 9/11 plus the Great Recession to get a Democratic president who was not a southerner.
In 1905, Lenin complained of how he was forced to write about, say, "Germany" when actually it was always about Russia: "An accursed period of Aesopian language, literary bondage, slavish speech, and ideological serfdom!"
I miss him so much
One of the all-time greats
