Gandalf The Plaid

Charlie Kirk never served one day in uniform nor one day in office. He made memes on the internet and said shitty things about people on podcasts. If this is who Republicans consider a hero and want to display in death, let them. It says more about them than anyone against their ideology ever could.

Everyone seems allergic to the word, but Charlie Kirk was not an activist, he was a propagandist. Turning Point was a meme factory backed by a billionaire designed to steer kids towards Christian Nationalism. He didn’t advocate for policy; he spun narratives to change beliefs. Propaganda.

what a humiliating way for don jr. to find out his dad sends birthday cards.

I would like to express my appreciation to the #GOP for one of their recent choices to distract the public. It is far less annoying for the distraction to be Sweeny showing up in my feed a bunch.

truly can't believe "I am the decider" is now a superior standard.

YouTube video by vlogbrothers It Makes a Kind of Sense -- The Trump Tariff Tier List

Hank Green made an awesome Tariffs Tier list.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Juu...

Not only punishment, but I have to wonder if it is also throwing up a roadblock to effectiveness for retaliatory legal action against Smith related to trump's theft of national security information. #WildConjecture

Voters Were Right About the Economy. The Data Was Wrong. Here’s why unemployment is higher, wages are lower and growth less robust than government statistics suggest.

The bit about if the economy really has worse than the numbers said during the election reminds me of this article that seems worth a read: www.politico.com/news/magazin...

@thebulwark.bsky.social As some are occasionally compelled to pledge, an alternative pledge for your consideration.

I pledge allegiance not to flags
but the United States of America
the former republic which failed to stand
one nation, now forgone
quite divisible
with liberty and justice now gone

Given how dangerous and absurd things have gotten, it is likely much harder for groups like @theonion.com to produce satire.
A proposal: A series of stories presenting parts of our government acting rationally and appropriately. It would be wistful absurdity.

several million very fit young German boys are still rotting away in the Russian steppes because someone forgot to requisition enough coats and antifreeze

Too in bed with or afraid to risk pissing off capitalism to risk fighting fascism.

These guys are super into H1B precisely because they’re also into corporate tax cuts.

They want to offload the expense of creating an educated workforce and just conjure labor out of thin air.

I like it when they get old enough to help. Just for the moment when you have them wrap up a box, let them go nuts with extra tape if they feel ornery and then they ask what to write on the label and you say "To you from mom and dad."

I expect anything that resembles an actionable plan will be again be branded as "socialism" or "extreme left" while developed nations go "'socialist'? 'left'? That's cute."

Part of what vexes me about this behavior is that it's not like there's some level of appeasement that's going to make media safe. Fascism requires an enemy to be attacked to keep the party happy there will never not be a target. Appeasement is just trying to be attacked last.

Not sure what is worse: the failures, or the removed liability that comes from using AI instead of humans.

It would be a brief future if it again doesn't deliver. That's the scary thing about fascists: they are willing to deliver stuff cause they are willing to do awful stuff. Since their stuff is social issue based, they'll be able to get more donor support than anyone trying for economic change.

YouTube video by hankschannel Who is Creating The Non-Human Army

In his latest video, @hankgreen.bsky.social talks about a phenomenon you may have noticed here: LLM-driven bots programmed to relentlessly disagree with anyone and everyone.

I can't help but notice the timing this coming shortly after mentioning some trouble coming up with material for a commencement speech.

Lots of opportunity for debate on it. But even within disagreements, I'd be surprised if RFK would rise higher in eyes of those who are aware of all of them.

Strange notion that making the only ethical choice for his kid is somehow expected to help others. Not pardoning him isn't going to provide any real value to other arguments anyway. We go high they go low anyway is getting old. Joe's real failure here was making a promise he couldn't keep.

Tough. It isn't ethical to sacrifice him to the whims of demonstrably vindictive people, on the naive hope it will in some way be respected. The "we go high, they go low anyway" stuff is getting old.

Only thing that annoys me is that he said he'd not pardon in the place. He should have stepped up and told the truth that trump has and will abuse his power again, and gets a kick out of harming people. Parent or not, it would be wrong to leave him at mercy of that feckless evil.

I grew up with folks complaining about major news outlets constantly giving the left a pass. My opinion that they are weak and give everyone a pass was not well received. This guy just oozes dishonesty and propaganda and is an obvious decline in already disappointing standards.

all she did was exist

Design seems to just be fad chasing. Perhaps it will loop back. I'm still waiting for design folks to realize that flat UI design is turning useful applications into a game of find / guess what you can do.