superdrivel

[superdrivel]

the wildest derek dieworkwear series of events so far and that’s saying something

[superdrivel]

there are a lot of dumb NGE products out there but none of them have gripped my consciousness as effectively as this humidifier

[superdrivel]

Fabio Viale, marble sculpture.

[superdrivel]

if someone did this on a date with me i would be bouncing on that thing the same night

[superdrivel]

yet another fucking coffee shop has opened near my house that is only open 8am-3pm and this time the theme is, self-reportedly, "science fiction", but actually and observably, "star trek and star wars", which apparently means hanging up bad fan art on a completely normal Gentrification Eggshell wall. and having a couple disney franchise toys lying around. if you were coming up with a gag for a sitcom set in seattle this would get cut in round one for being too generic

[superdrivel]

Israel’s new defense minister has said security forces would no longer apply administrative detention orders to Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, and thus only Palestinian suspects can be held indefinitely without trial. [...]

Israel Katz, a long-time ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was appointed defense minister earlier in November and announced the decision on Friday.

In June, the number of Palestinians held in administrative detention was 3,340, more than double the number held before the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7 2023, according to Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem. The Palestinian Prisoner Society said Saturday that over 11,800 Palestinians had been arrested since the current conflict began.

B’Tselem said 37 Israeli citizens and foreign nationals were also being held. It is unclear whether any Israelis have been released as a result of the policy change. [...]

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 733 Palestinians and 40 Israelis have been killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7. It also said there has been a sharp rise in settler attacks on Palestinians in the area during this time.

The U.N. said four Palestinian children have been killed every week in the West Bank on average since the current conflict began, a three-fold increase from the first nine months of 2023.

[superdrivel]

[superdrivel]

68

Ottoman factories with steam engines in 1897

by Yellowapple1000/reddit

[superdrivel]

I maybe it's I'm going insane do to to recent events but i have become completely disillusioned about the cyberpunk movement being truly "punk", given it ended up giving us moldbug, nick land, Elon Musk and the modern culture of silicon valley. I could be wrong though. i just can't help but think overwise.

Cyberpunk was never a social movement; anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is selling something. There's an argument to be made that it was, at one time, a legitimate artistic and literary counterculture, but if so, it's one that had largely exhausted its cultural relevance by the early 1990s, and it's been running on pure vibes ever since. This isn't to say that there haven't been individual works in the last thirty years of cyberpunk media that are worth examining, of course, but as a genre? It's not accidental that contemporary cyberpunk has mutated into an exercise in 1980s retrofuturism – that's about the last time cyberpunk literature as a whole had anything interesting to say.

[superdrivel]

The swift show of force underscores the rising power of Abu Shabab and other gangs in Gaza, who have in recent months developed a lucrative trade robbing aid trucks travelling into the enclave.

These gangsters act, humanitarian officials and Palestinian transporters allege, with the tacit permission of the Israeli military: what a UN memo seen by the Financial Times called “the passive, if not active benevolence” of the Israel Defense Forces. [...]

While some theft occurs on the road itself, in other cases trucks are forced into the gangs’ bases. In such instances, one transport broker said, “the driver is led under the threat of weapons to the eastern border areas within the eye line and earshot of the Israeli military”.

Multiple senior UN officials argue that such brazen theft could not happen without the assent of Israeli forces. “These guys are probably the only people in Gaza who can get 100 yards from an Israeli tank or Israeli soldiers without being shot,” one said.

[superdrivel]

Rest in peace Twitter. It was bustling and there was always something happening, but it wasn't actually nice or enjoyable, and everyone there privately resented being there (but in many cases had to be for career reasons) and sustained themselves with an unearned sense of superiority over users of other websites. Truly the New York City of social media

[superdrivel]

Private schools across the South that were established for white children during desegregation are now benefiting from tens of millions in taxpayer dollars flowing from rapidly expanding voucher-style programs, a ProPublica analysis found.

In North Carolina alone, we identified 39 of these likely “segregation academies” that are still operating and that have received voucher money. Of these, 20 schools reported student bodies that were at least 85% white in a 2021-22 federal survey of private schools, the most recent data available. [...]

Northeast Academy, a small Christian school in rural Northampton County on the Virginia border, is among them. As of the 2021-22 survey, the school’s enrollment was 99% white in a county that runs about 40% white.

Every year since North Carolina launched its state-funded private school voucher program in 2014, the academy has received more and more money. Last school year, it received about $438,500 from the program, almost half of its total reported tuition. Northeast is on track to beat that total this school year.

Vouchers play a similar role at Lawrence Academy, an hour’s drive south. It has never reported Black enrollment higher than 3% in a county whose population hovers around 60% Black. A small school with less than 300 students, it received $518,240 in vouchers last school year to help pay for 86 of those students.

Farther south, Pungo Christian Academy has received voucher money every year since 2015 and, as of the last survey, had become slightly more white than when the voucher program began. It last reported a student body that was 98% white in a county that was 65% white. [...]

Across the once legally segregated South, the volume of public money flowing through voucher-style programs is set to balloon in coming years. Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina all have passed new or expanded programs since 2023. (South Carolina’s state Supreme Court rejected its tuition grants in September, but GOP lawmakers are expected to try again with a revamped court.)

Voucher critics contend these programs will continue to worsen school segregation by helping wealthier white kids attend private schools; supporters argue they help more Black families afford tuition. But many of the states have made it hard to discern if either is happening by failing to require that the most basic demographic data be shared with the public — or even gathered. [...]

Back when segregation academies opened, some white leaders proudly declared their goal of preserving segregation. Others shrouded their racist motivations. Some white parents complained about federal government overreach and what they deemed social agendas and indoctrination in public schools. Even as violent backlash against integration erupted across the region, many white parents framed their decisions as quests for quality education, morality and Christian education, newspaper coverage and school advertisements from the time show.

Early on, Southern lawmakers found a way to use taxpayer money to give these academies a boost: They created school voucher programs that went chiefly to white students.

Courts ruled against or restricted the practice in the 1960s. But it didn’t really end.

“If you look at the history of the segregation movement, they wanted vouchers to prop up segregation academies,” said Bryan Mann, a University of Kansas professor who studies school segregation. “And now they’re getting vouchers in some of these areas to prop up these schools.”

[superdrivel]

Statement on the Mt. Zion Dig and Israel’s use of archaeology to legitimize colonialism

https://open.substack.com/pub/austinanthropology/p/de-colonizing-archaeology-a-call?r=1nkb7q

(i am not necessarily starting a substack this just seemed like the cleanest professional way to share this statement. please co-sign the statement and share with any anthropologist / archaeologist friends who will speak out and co-sign:)

[superdrivel]

[superdrivel]

[superdrivel]

i’m gonna tjrowbip

[superdrivel]

i feel like this is exactly how i sound when i post on here