"Michael Monaco"

bsky.app/profile/fain...

This is very interesting (and yeah, I also had an initial “oh come on, that’s nuts” reaction to the first part of this article, but as I read on, I realized he was making some pretty compelling points)

is my reflection conscious? do the shadows on the wall stare back at me? can the people on the TV hear me cheering at them? does my bowling ball know i'm telling it to avoid the gutter?

Portland’s Inclusionary Zoning Program Is Finally Performing, New Data Suggests | Sightline Institute Because for the first time, the city fully funded it.

Good news: New data suggest that Portland's inclusionary zoning program is finally working as intended, after being fully funded in 2024 www.sightline.org/2025/11/25/p...

damn that's crazy

She's been around the world over the last year — but came back to Charlottesville because she sees people ready to lead Emily Gorcenski sees a growing rejection of hopelessness over national politics. It's being replaced by active learning and participation in local issues, she writes.

yep. this town building something, I see it in so many different ongoing threads here. wouldn’t choose to be anywhere else in these times my own self.

“trump is ecstatic to meet the muslim socialist immigrant mayor of new york while MAGA’s strongest soldier from georgia-14 resigns in disgust” is a fucking coalition-breaking disaster for the hard right

This one made me take a 20 minute walk in the crisp evening air

bro

This is major. If you know anything about Shiloh/Erik's whereabouts for the last 13 years, please contact the Charlottesville Police Department.

Sage's family deserves closure. Her beloved grandmother has died, and her aunt was murdered by a serial killer. Help this family get the answers they need

Hey thanks for this post, this combination of words finally made me pick it up and episode 1 completely hooked me

If you use GMail, AI (Gemini) was turned on yesterday by default and now scans all of your content for machine learning. To turn off, go to Settings>General and scroll down. Uncheck the box for "Smart features."

There's other "Smart" add-ons as well, but that's the one that reads your content.

y’all a good dude needs a hand. let’s help a fella out

I genuinely do not know if the tens of thousands of people who are a part of this corps of stormtroopers can even be rehabilitated after this. There has to be something fundamentally broken inside of everyone who is involved in this for it to go forward.

Childcare? Healthcare? Homes for the homeless? Sorry, the grand imperial economic project matters too much to guarantee those things. Looting the public good? Starving and bombing children? Filling the coffers of the rough beast? Hey, tough times, nana doesn't get gifts this year, suck it up.

I'm always surprised that conservatives find new depths to plumb, but adopting a message of "grandma doesn't need slippers?" How can you say this stuff and not need to go stare into the mirror, dead-eyed, for hours on end?

fr i just dont want to see it at all.

Are you interested in holding your elected officials accountable? We need people to join bird dogging teams! There are lots of roles — research and support roles for introverts, asking well-crafted, strategic questions for those willing to speak out! There’s something for everyone!

Hahaha i will accept no substitutes!

I'm not a particularly religious person these days but i do believe that stuff like this represents a genuine affront to humanity in the most demonic sense possible.

Cville: our local immigrant bond fund is under strain. it’s critical we help our neighbors secure release so they can maintain their lives and families while the cases proceed. this is a meaningful way to fight this fascist bullshit—right here, right now. please join me in donating.

showing up to the next No Kings rally with a big sign that says "restitution for victorians," infuriating and baffling everyone around me

coffee at 2pm won't affect your sleep adversely if you are pure of heart and spirit

everyone rightly gave comey grief for throwing the 2016 election with his poorly-timed crap but imagine sitting through the entire 2024 election cycle with access to these emails + whatever else is left to be revealed and not even considering it as a hail mary play to destroy trump.

crozet folks - if you want to carpool down to IX, hit me up!

Orc Crossbreeds. Luthic, the orc goddess of fertility and wife of Gruumsh, demands that orcs procreate often and indiscriminately so that orc hordes swell generation after generation. The orcs' drive to reproduce runs stronger than any other humanoid race, and they readily crossbreed with other races. When an orc procreates with a non-orc humanoid of similar size and stature (such as a human or a dwarf), the resulting child is either an orc or a half-orc. When an orc produces young with an ogre, the child is a half-ogre of intimidating strength and brutish features called an ogrillon.

Or, you know, this from the 2014 fifth edition monster manual. I find this really weird, personally! When I play dnd I can just ignore this or make up something better. Musk/Thiel/etc have calcified imaginations and so are entirely limited by their belief in innate and fundamental structures.

So yeah it's not a big leap from reading Tolkien's works to the AD&D Monster Manual describing Orcs as "fecund" and prone to creating "mongrel" races, or the 3.5e Monster Manual talking about "successful" half-orcs as "the ones with enough self-control to live in a civilized land."

Hitler was the tails to Tolkien's heads, if you follow me. Hitler - and the new nazis, Musk/Thiel/Vance/etc - believe very much in a mystical order to the races of the world, and believe in the fundamental innateness of identity. They believe in that "noble northern spirit," same as JRRT.