Pumpkin Baby

Other thoughts I keep in my head at once -

"Maduro says stuff I agree with about the environment and US imperialism"

"We shouldn't murder random Venezuelans on boats or disappear Venezuelan immigrants to gulags"

"Maduro rigs elections and kills journalists"

A heroic activist in Philly goes before city council all the time and always starts his comments by asking which councilmembers rode SEPTA that day. Out of 17, only 1-2 appear to ride SEPTA with any regularity, even though Philadelphia City Hall is the nexus of the entire network.

"This country's leader is a dictator who stifles political dissent"

and

"We should not militarily invade this country because we're not the World Police"

are two thoughts I'm comfortable holding in my head at once, and I think most people can do the same thing.

Lyric: The stars did align in nineteen ninety-nine When we getting ready for the moment to shine With luck, star-struck On the front of the storm we shall be born Under the red and the blue and the white These angels will take flight

I mean...

This reads like it could be a novelization of the cult classic post-rock epic The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads, which posits that Texas is the promised land bequeathed to the descendents of Abraham (This album is gorgeous and surreal)

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

I sat for a long time and watched as the whole thing just... worked. People who need cars or need to be driven can still get where they need to go, but the people whose lives are made worse by other people's cars aren't exposed to too many of them. It's awesome.

Do I think Johnson and Johnson are upstanding citizens who are my friends? No. Do I think it's good that they make enough bandages that they are not a scarce commodity? I sure as hell do

Hey quick, before you change the topic of conversation, what do these numbers in the graph indicate about how much of the national housing market is owned by private equity firms? Are you brave enough to admit you believed a conspiracy theory because the villain was compelling?

the basic innumeracy of Left-NIMBYs drives me crazy

WHY DO YOU OPPOSE BUILDING MORE HOUSING???

Whenever people talk about "luxury housing," I remember there are literal mansions in Hartford, CT that are now selling for less than it costs to buy a starter home in Silicon Valley. If we judge luxury by market value, there is no housing that is intrinsically, permanently "luxury housing."

So like, not a Saudi investor group, but just the country of Saudi Arabia? What?

I know you think you get a lot of auto ads in Boston but you have no idea how bleak it gets. The more rural, the more auto ads, until you get REALLY rural and it's mostly auto ads but partially religious propaganda

You're all welcome

This album is a birthday present for me, specifically

They are a vanguard of data-focused pragmatic policy-focused leftism, but that all leaves their bodies the second housing issues arise

Sam can you please go on the Majority Report and talk some sense into them about housing? They hate Ethan Klein so much (fine) that they are arguing themselves into NIMBYism (not fine)

No one likes getting a ticket but NO ONE wants to live in a world with no parking enforcement. Absolute hellhole world.

Raft, I reckon

Raygun is serving some serious "Hank Williams at home" vibes

Hey now some of us rock short coats because we are bicycling, tyvm

TikTok will be co-owned by China and Trump allies, Paramount was sold to a pro-Trump billionaire who's also set to buy Warner Bros, X is owned by an apartheid-bred fascist, WaPo and Meta are owned by Trump-cowering billionaires, and Murdoch owns the Fox empire. Here's why media has a liberal bias.

He even pulls off that haircut and hippie-ass wardrobe!

Incredible

W/alt

It is the ideal summer herb

You wanna see what the end game of this looks like? Check out India's news shows.

In 1999, he wrote the book on it—well, the academic journal entry on it—that has grown prescient in the age of the crisis actor. At their core, he says, people like Thom fail to grasp a simple idea: Sometimes things just happen, often for no discernible reason whatsoever. “Just as with the physical world, where hurricanes, tornadoes, and other ‘acts of God’ just happen, the same is true of the social world,” he wrote. “Some people just do things. They assassinate world leaders, act on poorly thought out ideologies, and leave clues at the scene of the crime. Too strong a belief in the rationality of people in general, or of the world, will lead us to seek purposive explanations where none exists.” He says conspiracy theorists rely on what he calls “errant data,” or random minutiae within a terror attack or major event that can—and maybe should—go unexplained in reality. Those pushing conspiracies, however, seize on that unexplained info and attempt to explain it in full. It is an effort to connect every dot on the map—every blade of grass on the Grassy Knoll—even if some dots have nothing to with the larger event at all.

Hebrew Bible scholar Joel Baden champions this theory. He reads the burning bush exchange about God's name as being humorous and light-hearted. Of course, that doesn't mean it can't hold theological meaning while being funny!