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i really enjoy looking through reddit threads related to death metal because the replies sound like a groupchat for cartoon villains

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Xinis questions whether the administration intends to comply with the order at all, citing a statement from U.S. Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem that Abrego Garcia "will never be allowed to return to the United States." According to Xinis, "That sounds to me like an admission. That's about as clear as it can get." So what’s next? Will the Supreme Court and lower courts hold the administration in contempt and enforce contempt citations? Not if the Big Ugly Bill is enacted with the following provision, now hidden in the bill: “No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued….” Translated: No federal court may enforce a contempt citation.

I get it. I also hate calling people. But you gotta. Call in the middle of the night if you have to.

No kings.

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Across the country, judges increasingly are sending defendants to rehab instead of prison or jail. These diversion courts have become the bedrock of criminal justice reform, aiming to transform lives and ease overcrowded prisons.

But in the rush to spare people from prison, some judges are steering defendants into rehabs that are little more than lucrative work camps for private industry, an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.

The programs promise freedom from addiction. Instead, they’ve turned thousands of men and women into indentured servants.

The beneficiaries of these programs span the country, from Fortune 500 companies to factories and local businesses. The defendants work at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Oklahoma, a construction firm in Alabama, a nursing home in North Carolina.

There’s little drug rehabilitation going on at these labor camps. Some of the companies that utilize the slave labor are so dependent on it that they’d go under without it. Some of the industries these men are forced to work in are notoriously dangerous. When they’re injured, the companies file workers compensation claims – and keep the money for themselves, even though the workers are typically not employees but clients.

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poor gurathin has against his will realized that he vibes with murderbot perfectly, immediately saw it heroically die in the explosion, then saw it get stolen and destroyed by the corprim, did a monumentally dangerous thing without a backup to bring it back, brought it back, and was extremely visibly excited to have somebody on presaux to roll his eyes in unison with. like he loves them all, but murderbot also turned out to speak his language, and hoo boy did he miss that.

he was So Excited to show murderbot the ropes, omg. so soft and sleepy and happy and offering to share and re-experience the best ever thing that happened to him to somebody who would get just how weird and miraculous and amazing it was.

and then, oooof. oh man, the actors were SO GOOD. like two lines of dialogue to convey murderbot haltingly grapple with its own understanding of its wants and needs; and gurathin's acceptance that and, essentially, bless him to go. amazing.

(mensah is still murderbot's favorite human. but those two are going to be a menace to society when murderbot, grown into its own skin, will come back home.)

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i don't want to pick a fight which is why this isn't a reblog but seeing the thing described in this post summarised as "the best argument I've ever seen for the worth of public art"... imagine what all the other arguments must be like.

idk this looks like some asshole doing something annoying but people deciding because it was called 'art' everyone else has to be fine with it. "Art should make people uncomfortable" is not a good ethos to keep to when your art is in the middle of the public square maybe?

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Babylon 5 text posts part 11

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] [part 5] [part 6] [part 7] [part 8] [part 9] [part 10]

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it took actually watching Citizen Kane for me to realise The Union Forever by the White Stripes is, in fact, about Charles Foster Kane.

it is especially remarkable given the song bets you five you're not alive if you don't know his name. imagine how many fives i've earned through all the times i've listened to it thinking 'huh, I wonder who they're talking about'

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This is American “freedom”

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As far as I can tell, Trump’s outright refusal to release everything the government has on serial rapist Jeffrey Epstein is the first thing to prompt a serious backlash from his base. Bombing Iran + restarting aid to Ukraine + feuding with Rep. Thomas Massie + a few disputes over the reconciliation package had already been creating some internal divisions within MAGA world, but this looks to be a full-on revolt. Epstein plays a central role in the shared narratives of the Trumpist universe, he is an established villain who cannot suddenly be written off as irrelevant, not even by President Daddy. Trump has no easy way out of this because if he releases all of the Epstein files it would reveal how often he appears in them

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Am I right in feeling like there's a weirdly large category of public figure that's like: people who were seen as relatively normal, and either not involved with politics, or politically liberal-to-moderate, before 2020, and then went kind of (in the colloquial sense) crazy, in a right-wing direction, either around 2020 or since then?

Elon Musk and J.D. Vance, obviously. Tulsi Gabbard. J.K. Rowling, although she doesn't have the Trump connection that the others do. Kanye West, although in his case it was maybe a continuation of things he was already saying well before 2020. Possibly Mark Zuckerberg? Not strictly in the "went crazy" sense, but his PR image did seem to shift from a standard "coastal liberal" type to someone who expressed excitement about Trump's presidency.

Has this in fact been an anomalously large trend since 2020, and if so, does it have anything to do with long COVID? Or just like, the psychological effects of living through a pandemic?

I can't remember if I've seen other people talk about this before, at least explicitly. It seems like the kind of thing that people on Substack would write long analyses of

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Dagger Blade Types for Flavor

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I have been carefully curating my browsing habits to tune the facebook algorithm into giving me the most unhinged pseudoscience imaginable. It's delightful, people in the comments are fighting about whether the soul is eternal or if our brains are antennas and "consciousness" is really just information beamed into our heads by extra-dimensional aliens.

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everyone watch this.

if you are someone who doesn't understand how anti-fatness is structural and inextricably connected to antiblackness and eugenics, watch this for a super accessible breakdown of this theory

if you are someone who has a good understanding of theory (about this or anything) and is looking for an example of how to educate about it to a broad audience who isn't necessarily looking to learn theory but who needs to be informed about it-- the structure of this video seems like a really solid construction.

starting with a social media trend that's the current subject of discourse that your target audience has seen,

begin surface level with the origin of the trend,

analyze the fascist messaging in response to the trend, not just debunking claims but explaining the historical context of the claims and why they are being leveraged in this context to forward their political project.

explain the history of this fascist project and how its goals are embedded in systems people interact with every day.

explain the impact on people

draw parallels to other oppressive structures and how they interact with this one

offer theory

offer some small takeaway for what someone can do to process and learn more about this structure, so they figure out ways to combat it in their own lives

it's very very good work.

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Read from the BEGINNING.

Updates Monday through Saturday.

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A dark question I am asking this genuinely:

If Israel is committing a genocide, why has it been so ineffective for seven decades? And I am asking this literally: what has stopped them? Other countries’ intervention? Is the argument that it is recent? How recent (since October 7? That doesn’t sound right).

I was reflecting on the 10 stages today and wondering about this. From what I understand and have seen, people say Israel has so much power and could and has done harm so what is stopping them if that is the intent?

What is the argument?