Eric Shmeric

Libraries Scramble for Books After Giant Distributor Shuts Down Why it might have been and may continue to be harder to get new releases from your local library.

Private equity destroys 200-year-old book distribution company that libraries around the country rely on and now libraries are having trouble getting new books:

www.404media.co/libraries-sc...

Gonna wear my Dark Tower hoodie tomorrow at school... that's my Halloween costume.

Early planning documents reviewed by WIRED describe a statewide transport grid designed for steady detainee transfers across Texas, with ICE estimating each trip to average 100 miles. Every county would have its own small, around-the-clock team of contractors collecting immigrants from local authorities deputized by ICE. It is a subtle transfer of the physical custody process into the hands of a private security firm—authorized to carry firearms and perform transport duties “in any and all local, county, state, and ICE locations.”

NEW: ICE is planning to build a shadow deportation network in Texas. A proposal outlines a 24/7 transport operation run by armed contractors—turning Texas into the logistical backbone of an industrialized deportation machine.

My latest @wired.com: www.wired.com/story/ice-is...

Judge rules George R.R. Martin and other authors can sue OpenAI for copyright infringement

• Said ChatGPT generated 'Game of Thrones' content similar enough to infringe copyright

• OpenAI’s motion to dismiss was denied

RFK Jr. Admits He Can’t Actually Tie Tylenol to Autism Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said there isn’t “sufficient” evidence to back up his claims.

RFK Jr. admitted today that he has no "sufficient" proof of a link between Tylenol use during pregnancy and autism, calling his evidence "suggestive."

Can't wait to see the size of Tylenol's lawsuit.

Because I think someone's gonna need a Tylenol.

Thanks! I'll call them later today.

Arts and Sciences, 2004.

WashU alumn here. What is WashU potentially not resisting and who can I call to help?

Fellow DMV residents: here's a local, secular, longstanding, high-impact 501(c) #foodbank you can donate to: nourishnow.org

What an incredible chart!

I've also come to just accept the fact that there are a lot of bad takes out there, often given in bad faith too. But this chart is proof that those bad takes don't automatically sway public opinion.

Everyone who claimed Dems would cave to prevent a shutdown OR that they’d cave shortly after that to keep the shutdown brief OR that they were stupid to make the ACA tax credits the flagship issue can apologize any minute now.

Were the raptors, gremlins, and alzheimer's-vaccine apes in another truck then?

So Ds might be walking to election day with a 220k-vote advantage. Not bad for an off-off year election.

2. In Georgia, there's very exceptionally statewide races on an off-year; dynamic shaped by some places having local elections & others not.

Right now, 10 biggest blue counties account for 49.9% of the votes cast. Black voters account for 32.2%. (Last year at this time, it was 45% and 25.2%.)

Your daily updates of the turnout data in Georgia and Pennsylvania incoming.

1. In Pennsylvania, 646,607 ballots have now been cast. 67.2% by Democrats, and 25.4% by Republicans. (This has been very stable all week.)

Last year, roughly this time: 60% Dems, 30% Republicans.

Inside the Clunky Elections to Control Pennsylvania's Supreme Court - Bolts The GOP is making an expensive push to end Democrats’ majority on a court at the center of election lawsuits, sparking a fledging campaign season with little precedent or template.

If Dems win the Supreme Court races in Pennsylvania in 9 days, it’s extremely likely the GOP can’t get a majority on that court until 2029.

The GOP really wants to have this majority during the 2028 presidential race.

Can’t put the stakes any more clearly than that. boltsmag.org/pennsylvania...

‘We Deeply Regret These Errors’: DOJ Walks Back Key Evidence In Defense of Trump’s Portland Deployment Read more here.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) Monday corrected a key piece of evidence it repeatedly cited in defense of President Donald Trump’s attempted military deployment in Portland, Oregon, last month. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Finished INVITATION TO A BEHEADING.

Now reading DESPAIR.

All of his Russian novels thus far feel like Stephen King novellas, though with exceptionally better prose (no offense to King).

I've noticed the opposing team's fans only cheer when the opponents score on us. To win those fans over, I recommend we score on ourselves repeatedly; that will surely make them so happy they'll start supporting us. And I'm sure all our fans will keep cheering for us—who else is there to cheer for?

Yes we still have CIE! It's not part of the curriculum, though I will be teaching a chapter from this in my "Media, Emotion, and Morality" class next semester.

THE BOOK OF LAUGHTER AND FORGETTING by Milan Kundera. It's all about how to find joy while living under fascism. The go-to solution is to forget the past, but Kundera says this actually is a form of submission, as it lets fascists rewrite history.

His advice is instead to laugh at fascists.

Deeply racist, yes, but also deeply stupid.

Rural counties have higher enrollments than urban ones. Some of the largest enrollment states are red ones like Louisiana, Oklahoma and West Virginia. Undocumented immigrants are ineligible. Most beneficiaries are required to work 80 hrs/month.

These guys get $50k signing bonuses.

Stephen Miller is telling them they have immunity and encouraging them to create chaos.

They get almost no training, many couldn’t pass an open book exam & they’re allowed to hide their faces.

They’re swinging assault rifles around in public.

Abolish ICE

Opinion | How Can Democrats Win Back the Working Class?

So much talk about "working-class" voters becomes a discussion of how to accommodate and reinforce misogyny and bigotry in order to win elections. "Working-class" in these discussions invariably means men (usually white men). If those are the voters you're trying to reach, just be honest about it.

YouTube video by Key & Peele It Turns Out the “Ghostbusters” Guy Has a Lot More Songs - Key & Peele

🎶 Lawnmower Man / Get up off of my lawn!
youtu.be/GxjNOv5QPzM?...

A federal judge ORDERS senior Border Patrol officer Greg Bovino—the face of Chicago's Operation Midway Blitz — to attend in person at a hearing she just set on Tuesday. He's accused of violating her order by lobbing tear gas into a crowd.

More on Bovino www.allrisenews.com/p/general-sc...

The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Games Playing games is a basic human activity, and games raise a great number of fascinating philosophical questions. What, exactly, are we doing when we play a game? What is the value of games for human li...

Now it is official! The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Games is now, like, actually, surely, coming out! (This has been in the pipeline since 2018.) I have a piece here on this brand new thing called 'magic circle'. Everyone will be talking about it.

Periodic reminder that we live in a bona fide age of wonders and we can save it from all these dumb fucks trying to uproot it.

An update to these numbers, two days later?

Sure, here we go: 474,341 ballots have now been cast.

The share of Dem voters has ticked up a bit to 67.29%. Registered Republicans make up 25.44% of the ballots.

(Reminder of why I'm watching: boltsmag.org/pennsylvania...)

A Bard College student was kidnapped by ICE and Bard’s administration is advocating for his release and has created a website to assist the rest of the community in joining them.

That’s what academic leaders should be doing for their students right now. www.instagram.com/p/DQKSTDJkeF...