aust.in.quisitive

"...and when I finally wash out of this chess tournament, I'm going to run around the room, overturn every board, and scream that everyone cheated."

"Hey! Why are you grabbing me?! Get your hands off me!"

What a stupid thing to say on a public website under your government name when your academic career has barely begun.

It should also be pointed out that THESE ARE THE REGIMES THAT TRUMP AND HEGSETH ADMIRE AND WISH TO EMULATE.

Between Russia's clownishness in Ukraine (17 miles of out-of-gas vehicles) and the limpness of Iran's response here, I think I'm coming to understand how these rogue actors use their militaries - low-tech brutality to harm citizens and weaker neighbors, but on top of that, mostly just embezzlement.

OpenAI posted the terms of the deal. Reveals that it absolutely does allow for domestic surveillance. EO 12333 is how the NSA hides its domestic surveillance by capturing communications by tapping into lines *outside the US* even if it contains info from/on US persons.

openai.com/index/our-ag...

For a good while there we millennials looked younger than earlier generations when the same age - largely because we smoked less - but with the stress of the past decade, I wouldn't be surprised if we've caught up.

meanwhile, war rages on at home.

if people are using classified information to place bets, then theoretically others can analyze betting behavior to find signals that reveal classified information.

When this ICE shit started, a mutual I’d never met asked how to help. I sent him to a friend’s kid’s preschool that was struggling to find patrollers. He’s been there almost daily, even in brutal cold, at a school where he didn’t know anyone, to keep folks safe. We finally met and got beers tonight.

the incentives here are so obscenely terrible that the entire thing should be illegal by default

“I am sabotaging negotiations because I stand to make piles of money on Polymarket” is absolutely in play, what a horrifying clusterfuck

every single psycho thing Donald Trump does he does only because almost every single federally elected Republican has chosen unilaterally, independently, and with complete freedom to go along with it unconditionally

I have been very upset at Dem leadership for their failure to fight. All year they could have done much more to rally the public and focus opposition.

But in this moment that‘s all mostly irrelevant. A corrupt President has launched a war and only his party can stop this quickly.

Yes in this particular moment the blame is 99.9% on Republicans. A dozen R’s in Congress could together end this presidency now

we were probably all up last night staring at the ceiling with our own version of the same thought running on endless loop, but mine looked something like this:

I hate these people to a degree that feels simultaneously corrosive to the soul, and also the only righteous response to this kind of evil

Read it again. We killed 85 schoolgirls this morning.

It's not hard to imagine that if the ball had bounced just a little differently back in 2022, right now Sen. Lamb would be on some short lists for a potential future VP nod.

Unfortunately, I have to find myself agreeing with Richard Nixon on this one.

Obama signed a peace deal. It was working extremely well.

Trump ripped it up and started a war instead.

The first deaths announced from the US-Israeli strikes on Iran: dozens of school girls. They hit an elementary school in Hormozgan.

This is not actually about today's events lolsob but anyway read @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com very good essay, it IS relevant

I dont think irans nuclear program is located in elementary schools for young girls but apparently thats what we’re bombing

DO NOT LET ANY MEMBER OF CONGRESS WALK AROUND THINKING THEIR CONSTITUENTS DON’T CARE

In case you’re just waking up, the U.S. has teamed up with Israel overnight to start an illegal war of regime change, apparently on a presidential whim with no involvement of Congress, and they are already committing horrific atrocities.

The president is a really weak office with significant popular legitimacy. Pezeshkian is much more interested in peace than any reasonable person would be. You'd keep him alive if you want regime change. You'd kill him if you want a failed state

The US and Israel are bombing Iran. Anyone reporting it as “preventive” is engaging in propaganda, by definition. There is no interpretation of what’s happening as anything else than a crime.

You don’t have to like the Iranian regime to understand why this is bad.

And yet we will still see mainstream reporters claim that a Trump presidency is "more supportive of the free market." Guaranteed.

i genuinely think the trump republican party is a new political party wearing the skin of the old one

this is one of those things where i think it would be useful for more people to recognize that this is completely unrecognizable compared to republican party orthodoxy for essentially the entire history of the republican party

If the U.S. had to lapse into personalist rule by a doddering narcissist with a thirst for blood, I’d at least have liked our media institutions not to pick the same time window to hire a slew of people with all the perception of a rotten grapefruit.

A U.S. official said American military strikes on Iran were underway.

Remember when Congress authorized the use of force against Iran?

Me neither.

Any U.S. attack on Iran would violate U.S. and international law.