Flyndersticks

New executive order puts all grants under political control All new funding on hold until Trump administration can cancel any previously funded grants.

It's been obvious for a while that they were headed in this direction, & this attempt almost certainly won't go unchallenged, but you need to understand that this is & has been America's Lysenkoism moment knocking on the door, & it has to be resisted every way it can.
arstechnica.com/science/2025...

An iPhone notification that says BIRD FEEDER A BIRD DETECTED then an image showing a squirrel excitedly shoveling food into its mouth

Good news everybody the AI bird identifying tool on the camera bird feeder app has simply decided the squirrels ransacking the feeder are, in fact, birds

Asking GPT5 how many days of the week there are and getting reproduced arguments from that one bodybuilding dot com forum thread like a ghost in the machine.

@edsbs.bsky.social this is for you

Listen

Choctaw Vampire Hunters of the Gulf Coast is the first and only show I green light, everything else can wait

I have a very educated guess as to why Vince McMahon wasn't in Jeffrey Epstein's little black book, but my theory is something I definitely cannot say in public without evidence while Vince McMahon is alive

so when you…

• force this tech on most everyone

• block it from acknowledging trans people even exist

• remove lgbtq people from human rights reporting & allow ICE to conceal info on trans people in custody

…it seems like a good time for cis folks to stop considering political “compromises.”

Punchbowl’s Samantha Handler: New: Epstein drama is leading into the Education and Workforce panel. Republicans pulled a human trafficking related bill and the panel is now in recess. Dem Reps. Bonamici and Ansari had planned to intro amendments on releasing the Epstein files.

CNN’s Sarah Ferris: Interesting - Dem Rep. @MarcVeasey is trying to bring up this Epstein-related amendment in E&C hearing right now, tying it to student athletes bill Guthrie ruled it not germane (aka not relevant) but full committee is voting now on whether to overrule that

Politico: news - House Dems are prepping more Epstein-related amendment votes ahead of the Thursday CJS Approps [Commerce Justice Science Appropriations subcommittee] markup, per two aides

Semafor’s Eleanor Mueller: New: Tlaib just offered an amendment at House Financial Services Committee's markup that would force the Treasury Department to release a report on Epstein's financial transactions. "To this date, we only have a partial picture of Epstein's financial transactions."

With floor action ground to a halt by Speaker Johnson over Dem amendments on the Epstein files, House Democrats are now using them to jam up committees.

Includes Appropriations, Energy & Commerce, Financial Services, and Education & Workforce, which just shut down as Rs try to figure what to do:

man when they told me I'd be fighting cults in my 30s I was hoping for something way cooler than this

Agree with the thrust but I would adjust this thesis to read 'AI cultists dismantled large parts of the federal government because AI tools existed and they *did not ultimately really care one way or the other whether those tools actually worked as long as they provided cover for the firings*'

How big tech is force-feeding us AI Plus, OpenAI's absurd listening tour, top AI scientists say AI is evolving beyond our control, Facebook is putting data centers in tents, and the AI bubble question — answered?

Big tech promotes the story that since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, AI has been so popular it's rushed to meet the demand. The reality is different. A study by design scholars shows tech co's have had to push AI on its users with a variety of intrusive tactics.

How big tech is force-feeding us AI:

When I was little, the U.S. military came to our home at gunpoint and took me and my family away. We were imprisoned for years in barbed wire camps simply because we were Japanese American. I have spent my life telling that story, hoping it would never be repeated.

More for the “divesting in people, investing in speculative tech” file

I feel like the subtext in Boethius' "consolations of philosophy" is that it sucks to live in very dumb times.

Cannot believe how big the Epstein memo fallout got. I’m serious, i know small things often cascade and have large consequences for Trumpland because it’s ruled and dominated by the most bumbling of dick steppers but this has already exceeded my wildest expectations or most hysterical predictions

tough to see maga going through "there's no way the king would do this to us, he must be getting lied to by his crooked ministers." some classics really span the millennia

There's a Ram Dass quote from the 80s that's like, "Most of the New Age movement is an ego based rip-off of spiritual concepts by people who still want power."

Whelp, woulda been helpful for people to take *that one* in.

if you’ve ever wondered why “escaping small scale subsistence farming” has been humanity’s primary group project for the majority of our known existence, it’s because small scale subsistence farming sucks real bad

“ICE gets a bigger budget than the Marine Corps” is a simple fact that should be communicated very widely because it clearly expresses how crazy and radical this is

An archeological revolution transforms our image of human freedoms | Aeon Essays A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations and the scope of human freedoms

Fascinated by the alternative view on our (human) history that @davidwengrow.bsky.social provides in this essay aeon.co/essays/an-ar...
Why are we (collectively) so fascinated by Empires instead of all the other possible ways of living?

ICE agents scatter as SD Bishop Pham, other clergy visit immigration court "Our presence made a difference," one priest said, quoting an immigration lawyer saying their client was given more time to prepare for another hearing.

Michael Pham fled Vietnam at the age of 13. He was named bishop of San Diego a month ago.

Today, he stood watch at a courthouse: ICE agents were “standing there covered with masks as we walked toward the courtroom. Eventually the agents scattered and went away”

timesofsandiego.com/life/2025/06...

When I say, "yeah I'm really into pro wrestling" this is what I mean.

If random men in masks claiming to be ICE agents try to grab me, and they’re *not* really ICE, I have the legal right to defend myself against them, yes? And if they are ICE, I don’t?

So how am I supposed to tell the difference? I’m supposed to give my masked kidnappers the benefit of the doubt??

Finally, I continue to harp on this because it's important, we are going to win at the local level. That's where the main fight must be waged. Get to ground and fight like hell.

Take care everyone. Back offline.

antebellum era century chuck schumer who's like "the vicious caning of Senator Sumner is just a distraction from the debate on funding the C&O canal"

A screenshot of a tweet from Travis Akers reading: "Washington insiders are saying ODNI Tulsi Gabbard will resign if President Trump orders the U.S. military to join Israel in their strikes against Iran."

Huh

Norman Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech", but it's Dale Earnhardt wearing, probably Gargoyle, sunglasses.

"They ought to give the sonofabitch his due process."

YouTube video by United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit San Francisco Courtroom 2 12:00 PM Tuesday 6/17

HAPPENING NOW: A Ninth Circuit panel hears arguments on whether President Trump had the authority to federalize the California National Guard—and whether Judge Breyer's order blocking him from doing so should be stayed during appeal. 🧵

I think it's time enough we started creating confusing situations where uniformed authorities are trying to arrest each other.

Make use of things like the No Secret Police bill in CA, create a lane to arrest masked dudes kidnapping people off the streets (AS THOUGH THAT ISN'T ALREADY ILLEGAL)

Political stunts are good!!!