I felt like he was very up front about how the current system, as unfriendly to users as it is, is what has made it possible for him to make a living doing what he loves to do. He even comes out at the end and says if big companies can't figure out a post-advertising business model, they'll likely die off, and that means he and people like him are out of a job, 'and that's probably the best scenario for users.' Both ideas — that ad-funded internet ruined the internet, and that ad-funded internet allowed him and thousands of people like him to make a living on that internet — can be true at the exact same time.

These are all examples of the laws working as designed. The anti-abortion movement cares about precisely one thing: complete control over women’s bodies. An environment where doctors universally refuse to provide care to their patients for fear of incarceration isn’t a quirk of interpretation of an individual statute, it’s these laws working as intended.

And the man who placed the crucial three votes on the Supreme Court that brought us to this state is a toss-up to be returned as president in the next election. People need to wake the fuck up.

The national Democratic Party is the farthest left it’s been since before Watergate, and Biden has presided over the most progressive presidency since the Great Society. That’s due largely to the work of dedicated progressives and activists in the Democratic Party. A West run will tilt the election towards Trump and fracture the left for ten years or more. These were lessons that were all learned 23 years ago.

At this point it's foolish not to consider this as possibly the greatest tax writeoff in history. Elmo is setting himself up to never pay another dime in taxes the rest of his life. Not that he probably pays that much as it stands, but still.

I loathe Chris Christie with every fiber of my being but I will buy him a pair of Springsteen tickets if he files this suit.

I generally like Reich and I certainly agree with his conclusion here, but tbh I feel like this video is not great work. Some of the warning signs he calls out are generally accepted as markers of fascism, but to my mind it would have been better if he had hewed closer to the generally accepted tenets of Ur-Fascism, as outlined by Umberto Eco. It might have made for a longer video, but by fitting Trump to a framework established long before his rise, it avoids some of the just-so nature of the claims Reich lodges against him. Just my $.02.

Wilhoit's Law strikes again:

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

Tubgirl for everyone!

Don't threaten us with a good time.

I'm not averse to some form of this argument — though I'd argue this has been the case as far back as the 1994 midterm election — but this article is just a mess. Democrats look to preserve their gains, but they've won their battles already. LGBTQ issues have broken for the Democrats, except for the backsliding in the states and at SCOTUS this year. The drive to be conservative is being pushed by working-class whites and Blacks, but also by upper-class white professionals. And a day "probably" won't come where the Republicans end up to the left of the Democrats on economic issues, despite some "promising" noises (which are pure posturing) from some unnamed politicians (I'm going to say likely Hawley and Vance, which, LOL).

It's like David Graham is so intent on not giving a single point to the Democrats/being fair to the Republicans that he tendentiously reads everything in the most ludicrous possible light. I'm aware of the establishmentarian bent of The Atlantic, and normally I can read around it, but this is just weaksauce.

Seems like the Venn diagram of those two groups approaches a circle, if the OP is any indication.

I’d be sending Seal Team Six around to visit Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh as well.

I never stopped using RSS. I follow many sites and blogs using The Old Reader in my desktop browser, with Reeder piggybacking off its OPML file on my phone and iPad.

TOR was designed specifically with compatibility with Google Reader in mind and shares many of the old keyboard shortcuts. It also has rudimentary social features that are in no way in-your-face (good thing, too, because I never really saw the point of them).

I’m curious what you would prefer done. Do we all collectively decide not to pay attention? Because that’s really all that this is, drawing attention to the consequences of the policies set in place by one of the two major parties. If these stories go away, women still suffer, women still get deathly ill. We just won’t have to think about it. So what would you do? How would you support these women without telling their stories?

redirecting users to Lemon Party

I guess it's true; the Fediverse is bringing people back to an earlier time of the internet!

I started to type out a huge, involved comment, but I don’t want to come across like mirror-world Patrick Bateman, so I’ll just say here: Genesis. 1970-1976 and 1978-1998 were almost like two completely different bands.

"Gravy seals" belongs right next to "Y'All Qaeda" as one of those perfectly pitched nicknames that both encapsulates and decimates the right-wing freak show.

If your list of enemies includes the ADL, then there’s a more-than-reasonable chance that you’re an anti-semite.

Likewise if your loudest defenders are, themselves, loud and proud anti-semites.

Don't stick your fork in the light socket!

IANA tax attorney, and I've always had more time than losses, so I'll defer to your wisdom 😅 I also didn't claim he was smart …

If I still had my Reddit accounts I’d be P I S S E D

Lots to chew over in this piece. My knee-jerk reaction is to be opposed to any efforts to legislate against thoughtcrime, but I’m not insensitive to the effect deepfakes can have on the women targeted. Yet even saying “legislate” in the previous sentence isn’t quite right (nobody’s suggesting consumers of deepfakes should be prosecuted and imprisoned); what the article seems to suggest is a societal shift in approval vs. disapproval of one’s imagination — which is still alarming at a high level, but less so.

I also wonder if focusing on deepfakes as a unique problem isn’t a category error; AI is making all manner of false scenarios appear photorealistic, with ramifications society-wide. Maybe we need to confront the usage of this technology in general? IDK.

"Small government" really has nothing to do with it. As the article states, these are Republicans who represent districts Biden carried handily. They know they're vulnerable in the next election and are not willing to commit to a policy that will get them absolutely creamed in the general. It's comforting to know that they realize when their party is going too far and self-preservation causes them to temporarily do the right thing, but self-preservation is the only principle in evidence here.

Rumors that her husband, Jason Boebert, exposed his penis when asked for identification are unfounded.

The question is: her duties to whom? To the people who elected her, or to her husband? I'm sure I don't need to ask the question. Texas Republicans seem to be particularly cynical and corrupt, even by the debased standards of the modern Republican Party.

Genesis’ Seconds Out is my favorite live album of all time. For people only familiar with the Phil Collins era of the band, it’s a perfect gateway to their brilliant past. Phil treats the Gabriel vocals with love and affection and really brings his all. Steve Hackett gives possibly some of his strongest work with the band. And the drum interplay between Collins and Chester Thompson (and, on one track, Bill Bruford) is :chef’s kiss:

Zappa/Mothers Just Another Band from LA showcases one of my favorite eras of the band, cut tragically short. The best, most complete rendition of Billy the Mountain until the release of the Carnegie Hall show

MAGA has traditionally stood for "Make America Great Again," but I suspect after this year it might change to either:

Make Attorneys Get Attorneys

or

My Ass Got Arrested

I'm a total browser slut.

At work, I use Firefox as my main browser. I had been using Edge to access the Chromium rendering engine, but I've recently switched over to Arc.

At home, I recently exchanged Safari for Orion and Edge for Arc, with Firefox for when I work from home.

I used to have Opera installed for times when a VPN came in handy.

All on Mac

Trump never expected to win in 2016 and had no understanding of how the government worked, on any level. He still likely has no understanding how much of the government works, but he now understands how to warp it to protect and serve himself, and you bet against him doing so from day one at your peril.

There are some comments on some threads that really call into question the lack of a downvote button.

When a comment is so wrongheaded, so topsy-turvy logically and morally, it is actively harmful to discourse; not being able to deemphasize it leads to a generally worsened conversation.

If it’s OK with u/iamthatis, I’d suggest … Mercury (the Roman name for Apollo).

Do you really see a large number of gun-control-centered liberals talking about getting guns out of the "inner city" or away from "urban youth," though? Because what I've observed is most of the people who are concerned about gun control are trying to get guns out of the hands of largely young white men who shoot up schools, churches, grocery stores etc. I can't recall the last time I heard someone who identified as left of center complain about "violence in Chicago" — that beat is exclusively on the right.

the discussion should be about getting more folks covered

The discussion first needs to be substantially increasing Democratic numbers in both houses of Congress.

Obviously nothing will change for the better without a Democratic majority in the House. A nominal majority requires at least 4 more Democratic seats. There are far fewer Blue Dogs and conservative Dems than there were 15 years ago, but I would imagine a maximal ACA successor would require at least 30 new members to make sure assholes like Gottheimer don't gum up the works.

The filibuster rules in the Senate basically mandate at least 60 senators to pass anything of consequence. Yes, it's a Senatorial rule; yes, it can be removed with a straight majority. As it stands right now, two senators are on record as opposing filibuster repeal, and there are probably a few others who are still attached to the rules of the Senate as currently constituted. A fight over the filibuster now would fail, and time spent in the next Congress fighting to abolish the filibuster is time lost for legislating. So assume a minimum of 60 Democratic senators to be able to operate free of Republican obstruction. Again, if you want a maximal bill, you need more than 60 senators, to get around problem children like Manchin and Sinema* and other conservative Dems.

We're obviously in the realm of LBJ after the 1964 landslide here, which helps to explain why progressive victories are so hard-fought and far between. People forget that a big reason LBJ was able to enact the Great Society is because he was backed by 288 Democrats in the House and 66 Democrats in the Senate. By comparison, Obama had 60 Democrats in the Senate for about six to nine months, which is how the ACA was able to pass but was also why the ACA wasn't better than it was.

If we want better outcomes, we need more (and better) Democrats.

*It's very possible that neither of them will be in the new Senate. It's also possible that on some issues they are stalking horses for other senators who prefer to let them draw the heat.

Isn’t it iOS 17 currently in beta? Or are you planning to launch next year?

Genesis, particularly Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, is my favorite band. I've played around with using names from their songs as usernames for years, but it's only when I joined Reddit that I decided I should try to settle on one. I've always been fond of this track off their 1972 album Foxtrot. So if you should see some variation of this username online, it's probably me.

My first exposure to Ween was picking up a CD of Pure Guava when Push Th' Little Daisies was taking over modern rock radio. I gave it a single spin and then ran away from Ween for the better part of 15 years or so. Quebec is the album that brought me back into the fold.

TBH I prefer the cohesiveness of The Mollusk but there are some astoundingly good songs on Quebec, even more if you fold the Caesar demos into the mix. I would have loved for a full-throated Ooh Va Lah on the album.

Political leaders need better tech literacy like yesterday. Legislators not really understanding the fields they’re attempting to regulate is a problem that’s only going to get worse if trends continue.

Ron Paul and his racist newsletter were a thing in Libertarian circles at least 15 years before the "it's happening" meme. I had a Libertarian roommate in the early '90s whose only gripe with Reagan was that he expanded government too much. And of course the Libertarian Party was started by those noted socialists the Koch brothers.

I'm not really sure where the pining for past glory on the part of American libertarians comes from. Seems like this is another case where the American definition of a term has crowded out the European definition that many might prefer.

It says as much in the article.