Pearl L

Your regular reminder that normal, mainstream, pro-democracy political parties do not make restricting suffrage the central pillar of their policy platform

Saudi Arabia, other Gulf states pledged to invest $24 billion in Paramount's WBD deal. Is that still on? Saudi Arabia and two other Gulf states were going to invest $24 billion to help the Ellisons buy WBD last year. Are those deals still in place?

sure is

Just resharing this.

Trump's war with Iran spells out 5 points very clearly:

1. This is an aggressive war of choice that risks a regional crisis

2. It is an unconstitutional and illegal war

3. Republicans’ refusal to take their constitutional obligations seriously now has allowed multiple illegal, open-ended wars

This is a history lesson in why the incompetent drunkard and the brain dead pedophile shouldn’t be allowed to replace human judgment with AI.

Picture of Marjane Satrapi alongside a quote from her. The quote reads: The world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don't know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same... - Marjane Satrapi, Iranian-French graphic novelist

Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.

A lot going on right now but don't miss that Trump got one of the worst inflation reports of his 2nd term yesterday. The PPI came in hot, way over expectations. 1/

Yeah, Harper is a particularly obnoxious example, but the entire mainstream media apparatus saw their job as being armchair campaign critics for Harris instead of just straightforwardly discussing each candidate's record.

Every time I repost it, it's because I've seen posts that can lead to jail time.

Every single time I post it, someone comes out and is like 'FUCK YEAH MAKE THOSE POSTS'

And I think what a fucking wanker, to have *shitposting* being the hill to die on, not actual doing anything, just SHITPOSTING

🤪

X as a website encourages people to do bigotry for likes and affirmation and this is the people who identify as left wing on there have decided it is morally acceptable to indulge in bsky.app/profile/bfis...

When the Call of Duty generation of soldiers gets a concussive dose of wartime reality:

U.S. cybersecurity experts say Americans should be prepared for cyberattacks launched by Iran or its allies following U.S. strikes. Iran has in the past targeted critical infrastructure in the U.S. like ports, water plants or hospitals, and it’s likely that groups supporting Tehran may look to strike back against U.S. interests. “We should be vigilant,” James Winebrenner, CEO of the cybersecurity firm Elisity, told the AP in an email. He said to “expect heightened retaliatory activity in the coming days and weeks.”

Associated Press

This sort of thing disgraces all of humanity.

Bloody backpacks. Your tax money at work.

The real story is that foreign govts try to "interfere" all the time. In 2020 and 2024 we had mechanisms to catch them, call them out, & mitigate damage. Now, those mechanims are gone & the Trump admin would prefer to exploit "foreign interference" to justify a federal take-over of elections.

OFFS. When Iran tried to interefere in 2020, researchers caught them and called them out. Then the Benz-Weiss-Taibbi-Musk-Jordan-Trump axis labeled those researchers "censors" ... and set about defunding them and dismantling their organizations.

Additionally, I want to speak directly to Iranian New Yorkers: you are part of the fabric of this city — you are our neighbors, small business owners, students, artists, workers, and community leaders. You will be safe here.

My request for national political media: please remember these are liars, and your job is to not carry their water for them but instead hold them accountable while also accurately and fairly informing the public.

This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t George W. Bush may think that a war against Iraq is the solution to our problems, but the reality is, it will only serve to create far more.

It's note for note.

theonion.com/this-war-wil...

“People will die and nothing will be accomplished”

Deep take, fast, and fit for the moment. Bookmark it for accuracy.

FFS

CNN reporting that the strikes on Iran tonight are joint US and Israeli strikes.

Which means Donald Trump should be impeached for a third time.

What he has done tonight is illegal under the US constitution and the UN charter.

The party of limited government, free markets, & the marketplace of ideas, folks.

To recap:
Anthropic refused to do killbots or mass surveillance. DOD trying to destroy company.
Altman: we are now working with DOD, who totally respect safety and oppose mass surveillance!
Why would anyone trust a word Altman says after this?

Sam Altman tweet: Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network. In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome. AI safety and wide distribution of benefits are the core of our mission. Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement. We also will build technical safeguards to ensure our models behave as they should, which the DoW also wanted. We will deploy FDEs to help with our models and to ensure their safety, we will deploy on cloud networks only. We are asking the DoW to offer these same terms to all AI companies, which in our opinion we think everyone should be willing to accept. We have expressed our strong desire to see things de-escalate away from legal and governmental actions and towards reasonable agreements. We remain committed to serve all of humanity as best we can. The world is a complicated, messy, and sometimes dangerous place.

My goodness.

So let’s think about this.

A private company refused - on principle - to yield to the government’s demands.

The government then cancelled its contracts with the company and has set about destroying it

I've been thinking about how this has already played out in games - there was a massive push to convince the industry and world that there was this huge audience of angry reactionary gamers who weren't getting what they demanded. And it turned out there weren't that many and they don't buy games

Reminder: If you can't find a copy of Resident Evil Requiem Deluxe Edition + Steelbook, a decent amount of retailers will be back in stock around 1AM ET, 12AM CT, 11PM MT & 10PM PT, give or take and hour.

Amazon (Prime Eligible). #ad https://ow.ly/L2iW50YmMnS
GameStop. https://ow.ly/uEjq50YmMo6

(if you can hear this, don't forget to take your night time meds)