MDG

How many cautionary tales do we need about this? Can anyone in tech actually sit still long enough to finish a book or a film?

Just off the top of my head in fiction: V For Vendetta, Psycho Pass, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, Minority Report, Equilibrium, The Giver

The Ezra Klein style of caring about political “strategy” over consistent moral principles and values of your own reminds me of how a lot of pop culture consumers obsessively track box office and chart performance rather than just evaluating based on whether things are good or if they like them

agrias

TBH there is no way to design any system to counteract an executive declaring "I have all power and can exercise it arbitrarily" when a majority of the legislative and judicial branches responds with "that's right." Such a society is too primitive for modern governance and the rule of law.

Pritzker: "When did we become a country where it's ok for the US president to insist on national television that a state should call him to beg for anything? Especially something we don't want. Have we truly lost all sense of sanity in this nation that we treat this as normal?"

I believe this is known as "regime consolidation"

It would be very easy for ICE to make clear who its officers are and to display valid law enforcement creds. They’re choosing not to, to intimidate and spread fear. This is not how law enforcement should operate in a free society.

RFK Jr. pulls $500 million in funding for vaccine development. Follow live updates. - The Boston Globe The projects — 22 of them — are being led by some of the nation’s leading pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna to prevent flu, COVID-19 and H5N1 infections.

I hope that future historians absolutely *excoriate* a country on its way towards an HIV vaccine, among other things, that did THIS. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/08/05/n...

Bray Wyatt's Summerslam match against Finn Balor is one of my favorite "what the hell" redebuts ever. I was enjoying the Firefly Funhoise but seeing The Fiend with a remixed theme, the head of the old Bray as the lantern, and those other markers as he just murked Finn was truly awe. man had aura.

AAP Veers From Federal Guidance in Flu Vax Recommendations The group addressed vaccines containing thimerosal, recently targeted by a CDC advisory committee

www.medpagetoday.com/pediatrics/v...

Ozzy Osbourne being Ozzy Osbourne.

An incomparable legend.

Ozzy is one of like 3 people in Decline of Western Civilization Part 2 that comes off as a decent human being and I always love the scene where Penelope Spheeris interviews him making breakfast while he explains the ups and downs of the business.

it’s not enough to ram AI down my throat, i’m also meant to take it seriously! i’m not meant to say fuck you to people who use it to do my job! if i brought some idiot to YOUR job and said hey, check out my boy here, he does what you do cheaper and worse, i hope you’d tell me to go straight to hell!

Flimmaker Ken Burns: Public broadcasting is a 'purely American expression' Filmmaker Ken Burns tells NPR's Michel Martin about the role that federal funding has played in his documentary work and the potential impact of the loss of that funding on children's programming.

Filmmaker Ken Burns tells NPR's Michel Martin about the role that federal funding has played in his documentary work and the potential impact of the loss of that funding on children's programming.

Hell yes, 2 million raised for @gamesdonequick.com you LOVE to see it!

YouTube video by Democracy Now! James Earl Jones Reads Frederick Douglass Speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?"

One of my favorite annual @democracynow.org traditions is that we always play this video of James Earl Jones reading Frederick Douglass's speech "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?"

If you've never read or heard the speech, it's well worth your time.

Fox Mulder from X-Files saying “Hey, you got to stay alive if you want to stick it to the government”

“If you die, you let them off the hook.”

Needed this reminder today.

Right

Drive

what a stupid presidency, what a stupid fucking war

A regional war is still immensely bad but it's not really likely to spiral into WWIII and we do ourselves a disservice but talking about it in that manner.

very well-expressed thread 👇

Two things can be true: the Supreme Court is handing down a death sentence to trans kids, and also WE DO NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT THE DEATH SENTENCE and repeating things like "if you can't transition as a child you might as well die" where scared trans kids can see you talking is morally irresponsible.

There are no distractions. It's all bad. Systematically stripping trans people of their rights, guys in balaclavas shoving any brown person with a tattoo into a ummarked vans, ending healthcare for millions. It's all in service of fascism and technofeudalism. It's all one thing. That's the point.

Will RFK’s new ACIP re-vote on vaccines the prior committee approved in April? Update: I changed the headline here because I’m now hearing that ACIP may not be revoting on the April votes, as per the original headline on this post.

The new committee - chosen for bias and not expertise - is poised to vote on Vaccines For Children for covid-19 vaccines, HPV, Influenza and RSV. VFC covers vaccines for uninsured and underinsured children (about 50%). insidemedicine.substack.com/p/rfks-new-a... via @jeremyfaust.bsky.social 1/2

Some thoughts about the military parade in my hometown of Washington DC today -- specifically, the route. Military parades in DC are quite rare. But when they happen, they have always begun, symbolically and geographically, at the Capitol and moved outward. 1/

Statement from Tristan Kern de Gonzales Husband of Jonathan Joss My husband Jonathan Joss and I were involved in a shooting while checking the mail at the site of our former home. That home was burned down after over two years of threats from people in the area who repeatedly told us they would set it on fire. We reported these threats to law enforcement multiple times and nothing was done. Throughout that time we were harassed regularly by individuals who made it clear they did not accept our relationship. Much of the harassment was openly homophobic. When we returned to the site to check our mail we discovered the skull of one of our dogs and its harness placed in clear view. This caused both of us severe emotional distress. We began yelling and crying in response to the pain of what we saw. While we were doing this a man approached us. He started yelling violent homophobic slurs at us. He then raised a gun from his lap and fired. Jonathan and I had no weapons. We were not threatening anyone. We were grieving. We were standing side by side. When the man fired Jonathan pushed me out of the way. He saved my life. Jonathan is my husband. He gave me more love in our time together than most people ever get. We were newlyweds. We picked Valentines Day. We were in the process of looking for a trailer and planning our future. He was murdered by someone who could not stand the sight of two men loving each other. I was with him when he passed. I told him how much he was loved. To everyone who supported him, his fans, his friends, know that he valued you deeply. He saw you as family. My focus now is on protecting Jonathan’s legacy and honoring the life we built together. If your concern is how someone coped with trauma or how loudly they speak when recounting injustice and being ignored by authorities then you never truly cared about my husband. Jonathan saved my life. I will carry that forward. I will protect what he built. Tristan Kern de Gonzales

Jonathan Joss--voice actor of John Redcorn from King of the Hill, and Ken Hotate from Parks and Rec--was killed in a homophobic hate crime today.

I'm so angry.

Want to cut through small talk? Try asking a 'magical question' These creative questions are fun to answer and can help reveal people's personalities. Conflict resolution facilitator Priya Parker shares her favorites and explains how to come up with your own.

These creative questions are fun to answer and can help reveal people's personalities. Conflict resolution facilitator Priya Parker shares her favorites and explains how to come up with your own.

I'm crushed