Levka

Lev Zadov is not my real name. I expropriated it from a dead man. He wasn’t using it. It wasn’t his real name, anyway. It was his dead name. Dead names aren’t real. In real life he went by Zinkovsky. I’m not particular about my own pronouns. We’re all on the same side of the Class War. "He/him/they" works. I also respond to "yo," "soup’s on," and "freeze motherfucker!" I call other people by whatever pronouns and/or aliases that they say they want to be called by. It’s only polite.

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npub1et6yknexrshka5dfs72x20g5qv5h37494qp4rrqqrs4ecmkxxjps64e5sv

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[email protected]

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nprofile1qqsv4aztfunpctmw6x5c09r9852qx2tcl2j6sq633sqpc2uudmrrfqcpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0ds2zyvfh

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relay.damus.io

nos.lol

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npub1et6yknexrshka5dfs72x20g5qv5h37494qp4rrqqrs4ecmkxxjps64e5sv

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Last Notes

2026-05-22 23:00:07 UTC

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This puts me in mind of what happened to Ben and Jerry when *they* sold out. The big print giveth and the small print taketh away.

2026-04-17 14:10:38 UTC

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Good cop, bad cop, both cops.

2026-04-17 13:58:10 UTC

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"Like, we can innovate *everywhere*, but no, don't touch the only two possible systems of power? Really?”
I never said that. Don’t put words in my mouth. It’s rude. It’s dishonest. It’s very bad form.

2026-04-15 18:28:04 UTC

#RebeccaSolnit
"The United States is destroying itself.
The daily news can’t adequately convey the administration’s sabotaging of our government, economy, alliances and environment.
The United States is being murdered, and it’s an inside job. Every department, every branch, every bureau and function of the federal government is being fatally corrupted or altogether dismantled or disabled. All this is common knowledge, but because it dribbles out in news stories about this specific incident or department, the reports never adequately describe an administration sabotaging the functioning of the federal government and also trashing the global economy, international alliances and relationships, and the national and global environment in ways that will have downstream consequences for decades and perhaps, especially when it comes to climate, centuries.
(. . .)
But trying to understand motives is something of a hobby when the focus needs to be on consequences. We do not need to understand these criminals in order to try to contain and ultimately remove them. They will not last for ever, and we need to think about what happens when they’re gone – to talk about the kind of reconstruction the US will face for the first time since the civil war, the reconstruction a ravaged and corrupted country has to go through to return to functionality. But not to return to the way things were."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/12/united-states-trump-destruction

2026-04-15 18:27:34 UTC

Quote of the day.
"Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” -- Rebecca Solnit, *Hope in the Dark: The Untold History of People Power*

2026-04-12 21:46:59 UTC

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Iran is holding the best cars at the table, a Hormuz Straight. That beats Three Carriers and takes the pot. Trump really ought to fold this hand. But, oh well.

2026-04-12 20:38:18 UTC

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First they came for . . .

2026-04-12 20:24:26 UTC

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He’s not on his own, though. Alas.

2026-04-12 19:40:06 UTC

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To me it sounds like a scam. Buzzwords make money.
But the concept behind it raises serious ethical issues. They deserve as much attention as the AI debate has been getting lately.

2026-04-12 19:38:18 UTC

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https://archive.ph/RGLWu

2026-04-12 18:50:25 UTC

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"Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” -- Oscar Wilde, *The Picture of Dorian Gray*

2026-04-12 17:47:13 UTC

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Does this apply to archive.ph?

2026-04-12 16:37:19 UTC

#AI #TedChiang
"Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?
As it’s currently imagined, the technology promises to concentrate wealth and disempower workers. Is an alternative possible?
By Ted Chiang
When we talk about artificial intelligence, we rely on metaphor, as we always do when dealing with something new and unfamiliar. Metaphors are, by their nature, imperfect, but we still need to choose them carefully, because bad ones can lead us astray. For example, it’s become very common to compare powerful A.I.s to genies in fairy tales. The metaphor is meant to highlight the difficulty of making powerful entities obey your commands; the computer scientist Stuart Russell has cited the parable of King Midas, who demanded that everything he touched turn into gold, to illustrate the dangers of an A.I. doing what you tell it to do instead of what you want it to do. There are multiple problems with this metaphor, but one of them is that it derives the wrong lessons from the tale to which it refers. The point of the Midas parable is that greed will destroy you, and that the pursuit of wealth will cost you everything that is truly important. If your reading of the parable is that, when you are granted a wish by the gods, you should phrase your wish very, very carefully, then you have missed the point.
So, I would like to propose another metaphor for the risks of artificial intelligence. I suggest that we think about A.I. as a management-consulting firm, along the lines of McKinsey & Company. Firms like McKinsey are hired for a wide variety of reasons, and A.I. systems are used for many reasons, too. But the similarities between McKinsey—a consulting firm that works with ninety per cent of the Fortune 100—and A.I. are also clear. Social-media companies use machine learning to keep users glued to their feeds. In a similar way, Purdue Pharma used McKinsey to figure out how to 'turbocharge' sales of OxyContin during the opioid epidemic. Just as A.I. promises to offer managers a cheap replacement for human workers, so McKinsey and similar firms helped normalize the practice of mass layoffs as a way of increasing stock prices and executive compensation, contributing to the destruction of the middle class in America.
A former McKinsey employee has described the company as 'capital’s willing executioners': if you want something done but don’t want to get your hands dirty, McKinsey will do it for you. That escape from accountability is one of the most valuable services that management consultancies provide. Bosses have certain goals, but don’t want to be blamed for doing what’s necessary to achieve those goals; by hiring consultants, management can say that they were just following independent, expert advice. Even in its current rudimentary form, A.I. has become a way for a company to evade responsibility by saying that it’s just doing what 'the algorithm' says, even though it was the company that commissioned the algorithm in the first place.
The question we should be asking is: as A.I. becomes more powerful and flexible, is there any way to keep it from being another version of McKinsey?"
https://archive.ph/TAb8u#selection-449.0-485.149

2026-04-12 16:35:35 UTC

#Hegseth #Iran #ChristianNationalists
"Pete Hegseth’s holy war: the militant Christian theology animating the US attack on Iran
The Bible-thumping US defense secretary is overseeing another strategic disaster in the Middle East. Is this a war or a crusade?
Hegseth’s distinct combination of piety and bloodlust was most prominently on display at the 25 March worship service at the Pentagon, the first since the war in Iran began, when he prayed for 'overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy'. The prayer was so shocking that it appears to have provoked a direct rebuke from Pope Leo, who preached on Palm Sunday that God ignores the prayers of those whose 'hands are full of blood' from making war.
Hegseth will hardly mind harsh words from the head of the Catholic church, however. The 45-year-old US army veteran and former Fox News host is a member of an obscure, deeply Calvinist wing of evangelical Christianity – John Calvin broke from the Catholic church during the 16th-century Protestant Reformation – that rejects the pope’s authority and is rooted in a belief in predestination.
'They believe that nothing happens that isn’t in God’s will,' said Julie Ingersoll, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida, who researches this branch of Reformed Christianity. 'They believe that God directs everything that happens.'
Even a bomb falling on an elementary school full of children?
'If God would order a genocide in Deuteronomy 20,' Ingersoll said, citing a passage in which God instructs the Israelites to 'destroy every living thing' in certain cities, 'what makes you think he wouldn’t cause a girl’s school to be attacked?'”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/apr/10/pete-hegseth-christianity-iran-war-crusade

2026-04-12 16:35:12 UTC

#neuroscience #autism
"One Compound Repairs Neurons with Autism Mutations
Because autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is linked to over 100 different genes, a 'one-size-fits-all' medication has proven impossible to find. However, researchers are changing the game by using zebrafish to create a 'pharmaco-behavioral' map.
In a study, the team screened 774 FDA-approved drugs to see how they altered the behavior of larval zebrafish. By matching these drug 'fingerprints' to the disrupted sleep and sensory behaviors of fish with specific autism mutations (like SCN2A and DYRK1A), they identified candidates—specifically the drug levocarnitine—that can 'rescue' or reverse these symptoms."
https://neurosciencenews.com/autism-genetics-neuropharmacology-30480/

2026-04-12 16:34:14 UTC

#gender #DNA
"Female mice grow testes after this single DNA tweak
Small changes in the non-coding part of the genome have a key role in sex determination.
Female mouse embryos with a single letter change in a specific region of their DNA develop male reproductive organs, finds a study1 published today in Nature Communications.
Typically, female mouse embryos with two X chromosomes develop ovaries because a gene called Sox9 is suppressed. In male mouse embryos with XY chromosomes, the expression of Sox9 triggers testis development.
In male mice, Sox9 is controlled by a segment of non-coding DNA — part of the genome that does not encode proteins — called enhancer 13 (Enh13). Studies have shown that deleting Enh13 causes mice with XY chromosomes to develop female organs2, but until now, modifying Enh13 was not known to have any effects in female (XX) mice."
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01120-8

2026-04-12 16:33:21 UTC

#Google #AI
"Analysis Finds That Google’s AI Overviews Are Providing Misinformation at a Scale Possibly Unprecedented in the History of Human Civilization
This is catastrophic.
Google’s AI Overviews are peddling misinformation on a scale that may be virtually unprecedented in human history.
A recent analysis conducted by the AI startup Oumi at the behest of The New York Times found that the AI-generated summaries, which appear above Google search results, are accurate around 91 percent of the time.
In a sense, that may sound like an impressive figure. But here’s an even more impressive one: five trillion. That’s roughly the number of search queries that Google processes every year, translating to tens of millions of wrong answers that the AI Overviews are providing every hour — and hundreds of thousands every minute, the analysis calculated.
In other words, Google has created a misinformation crisis. Studies have shown that people tend to trust what an AI tells them without question, with one report finding that only 8 percent of users actually double checked an AI’s answer. Another experiment found that users still listened to AI when it gave them the wrong answer nearly 80 percent of the time — a grim trend the researchers dubbed 'cognitive surrender.'
Large language models adopt an authoritative tone and can confidently present fabricated information as fact when it can’t immediately glean a straight answer. Add the convenience that Google’s AI Overviews offer, and it’s easy to imagine untold numbers of users taking its summaries at their word."
https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/google-ai-overviews-misinformation

2026-04-11 21:44:45 UTC

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More than half a century after the Vietnam War, this fool is still judging martial success by body count!?! War is not a sporting event which can be scored by totaling individual actions. War is a business. Dryden said it was the business of kings. Butler said it was a racket. I’m with Smedley on this one. Follow the money.

2026-04-11 21:30:28 UTC

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History buff here. I must point out that the Terror achieved very little and only at first. Look what it led to. Even today humanity is still learning that overthrowing the evil cabal that rules your country issn’t enough unless society itself outgrows evil. Bangladeshis are demonstrating for anti-fascists the world over that grass roots fascism is the real root of the fascist problem. Fascist figureheads can be replaced. It’s the fascist *movement* that must be eliminated. There is one and only way to do this. Society must eliminate the psycho-social circumstances in which fascism can take root. Step one: Replace capitalism with libertarian socialism. It’s already being done and it works. It just needs to be scaled up. Any system that works just as well for aa handful of hippies running a pizza joint as it does for a multi-billion dollar, multi-national company like Mondragon is inherently scalable. The worker self-owned, worker self-managed workplace is the future of work. Don’t get left out.

2026-04-11 21:10:51 UTC

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Learn to parse.

2026-04-11 19:22:09 UTC

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Rather than demand an end to the oligarch-enabled Trump regime, better we should end oligarchy, starting with the oligarchs themselves.

2026-04-11 18:40:01 UTC

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Old white guy here. I've never picked cotton or rowed a galley but I know *exactly*how it feels to be a slave because I was prisoner once.

2026-04-11 18:07:07 UTC

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Yup, we won the Vietnam war, too. Just look at the body count.

2026-04-09 16:55:55 UTC

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Bourgeois feminists will tell you that the purpose of #patriarchy is to enable men to oppress women, which it does. But this is not its purpose. This is its mechanism. Its purpose is to enable men to oppress other men. And it works. Superbly. Most men are not patriarchs. They're schlumps. They work for the real patriarchs. They take orders all day. They don't seem to mind that much, though, in part because when they get home from work they can order their wives and children around. This must end.

2026-04-09 16:55:07 UTC

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#patriarchy #archeology
I recently engaged in a conversation with a man who was trying to convince his readers the #patriarchy has *always* been the natural state of the human species. This is patently false. Neither is patriarchy built into our genes.
"Always"!?! Oh, please. Anatomically modern humans have been around for at least 300,000 years. Patriarchy is, at most, 4-5,000 years old. It's not universal, ubiquitous, or omnipresent. It's not genetic. It's an aberration in the human story.
The belief that genes determine group behaviors is pure eugenics. It is the essence of Nazi ideology. People who think like that are thinking like Nazis.
Patriarchy is behavior. All culture is behavior. Behavior can change. Culture can change. One way we can tell is archeology. For example, we can study their graves. How people are buried can tell us a lot about how they lived.
Before the Steppe Culture expanded out of what's now Ukraine and into Europe and South Asia, burials were conducted much differently. Let's look at Europe because of the abundance of data available. When Steppe Culture met what Marija Gimbutas called "Old Europe" they slaughtered most of the males and, in most places, just took over. This *is* written in our genes. At this point in the story, burial customs shifted dramatically.
Prior to then, European burials were communal, with little or no individual grave goods. This implies a more or less egalitarian culture. Then the Steppe people imported their custom of exalting certain individuals by entombing them in kurgans, often with grave goods that included weaponry. This implies hierarchy.
The patriarchal bias of European archeologists assigned maleness to these skeletons, solely of the basis of their martial grave goods, without the advantage of modern paleogenetic technology or, often without even measuring the width of their pelvises. If they are armed, they must be male is how the thinking went.
The technology driven rise of paleogenetic science is discrediting this bogus analysis. Archeologists have had to begin to reconsider gender roles throughout human history.
While the luxurious grave goods clearly indicate persons of standing, graves with weaponry weren't all luxurious, they weren't all leaders, and they weren't all male. Many were what we'd call common soldiers. Some, in some contexts many, of them were women.
Women have fought since time immemorial. For example, the Scythian peoples (Tomyris's Massagetae, etc.) were famous for their coed cavalry. They are probably the kernel of truth behind the Amazons of Greek mythology and the valkyries of Norse mythology.
A female archer on horseback had a distinct advantage over male equestrians. They're lighter, so they can ride faster and turn sharper while riding on comparable horses. They were a formidable fighting force.
Not all women have been warriors. Most have not. Neither have most men. But as the central aphorism of anthropology clearly states, any behavior not universal is not human nature, it's cultural, idiosyncratic, or both. There are a lot of exceptions to the "only males fight" paradigm. Even today the Kurdish Women's Protection Units (YPJ) and the Bethnahrain Women's Protection Forces (an Assyrian all-female brigade of the Syriac Military Council) that they inspired, have a recent history of kicking ISIS's butt. Tradwives they are not. "Submissive"? Oh, please.
And so on. To summarize, the absurd notion that the fate of women has *always* been in the hands of men needs to be discarded. As for its believers, I take their reliance on ad hominem, rudeness and vulgarity to defend their position as proof positive of their beliefs themselves lack of worth. What they themselves are worth is a matter of opinion. I personally fail to see any worth at all in men like that. I'm not the only one.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they can change. After all, behavior is cultural and behavior can change. If any Mastodonians want to try, be my guest. I don't hold out too much hope, but hope dies last.
You try to change their minds, not me. I'm ill equipped. I'm far too reactive. Just listening to this crap raises my blood pressure. It's already high enough that I take medication for it. My diet and exercise regimen can't be at fault. I'm pretty good about that stuff. I blame it on the stress of living in late stage capitalism, especially the cruel and unusual crap we find on social media. And patriarchy and its results. The results of patriarchy are abominable. War is the worst of them but there's more. Domestic violence comes from the same source. So does bullying. So does our foolish and deplorable tendency to just believe anything the ranking males say without first applying critical fact checking.
I've done my best to convince these people that they're wrong. I've failed. Now it's your turn. If you have what it takes, please engage with these people. We will never yeet patriarchy from the human story until we understand it and we will never understand it until we are extremely clear on its etiology. Short version: it is *not* genetic.
The role of patriarchy in the problems and failures of modern civilization is an important subject. It should be discussed. But not by me, not with people who insult me and put words in my mouth. That stuff belongs on #xitter not on Mastodon, and not in my timeline. I muted the whole conversation.
But if you're interested in that sort of thing, check it out. Just ignore the ad hominems, vulgarity, tone policing and general rudeness. They are off topic and thus irrelevant. Bypass them. Cut to the chase.
I jumped into the thread here:
https://kolektiva.social/@LevZadov/116354514795706418
You can take it from there. Good luck. Thanks in advance.

2026-04-07 22:56:47 UTC

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What will deter him?

2026-04-06 01:02:41 UTC

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This person is more than just rude and ignorant, they’re an apologist for the (relatively recent) rise of patriarchy.
Are the propagandists of patriarchy welcome on Mastodon? Not on this 77 year old man’s watch.
I’d like to also point out that “screwturn” not only fails to provide evidence that anything I said was untrue or irrelevant, he has no way of knowing for sure that I *am* a man. For all he knows for certain, I’m virtual crossdressing, so for all he knows for certain, he’s insulting a woman. He’s *definitely* insulting women in general. By denying women’s history he’s denying women's agency.
He’s also lying. No, it was not “always” like this, nor shall it be forever. Even today there are groups and circumstances in which women are equals. Have doubts? Read up on anarchist culture.
The rise patriarchy, like the even more recent rise of capitalism, was a collective mistake. We’ll get over it like we got over the divine right of kings.
Don’t trust him. He’s a closet patriarchist, preaching defeatism. No, women don’t need to “lie back and enjoy it” because “that’s just Nature’s way”. Women have always resisted male (or any) domination, sometimes with lethal force.

2026-04-05 23:55:22 UTC

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Somebody is lying.
"The first casualty when war comes is truth". — Hiram W Johnson (attributed)
"All warfare is based on deception” — Sun Tzu

2026-04-05 23:34:36 UTC

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But wait. There’s more.
Female hunters of the early Americas
Sexual division of labor with females as gatherers and males as hunters is a major empirical regularity of hunter-gatherer ethnography, suggesting an ancestral behavioral pattern. We present an archeological discovery and meta-analysis that challenge the man-the-hunter hypothesis. Excavations at the Andean highland site of Wilamaya Patjxa reveal a 9000-year-old human burial (WMP6) associated with a hunting toolkit of stone projectile points and animal processing tools. Osteological, proteomic, and isotopic analyses indicate that this early hunter was a young adult female who subsisted on terrestrial plants and animals. Analysis of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene burial practices throughout the Americas situate WMP6 as the earliest and most secure hunter burial in a sample that includes 10 other females in statistical parity with early male hunter burials. The findings are consistent with nongendered labor practices in which early hunter-gatherer females were big-game hunters.
Despite such theoretical considerations, some scholars have been reluctant to ascribe hunting functionality to tools associated with female burials (20–22). Concerning the Paleoindian Gordon Creek burial, Breternitz et al. (23) grappled, 'Since the burial has been determined to be a female, the inclusion of a projectile point preform has been difficult to explain. However, if the artifact had been used as a knife or scraper, typically women’s tools, then its inclusion with the burial is a more consistent association.' Nelson (24) challenged a DNA-based sex determination at Toca dos Coqueiros (25) partially on the grounds that '...[t]he presence of inferred funerary offerings in the form of chipped stone points and other tools and flakes appear to support [male estimation]....' On the one hand, such reluctance may reflect a degree of contemporary gender bias r ethnographic bias. On the other hand, ethnographically informed models of gendered subsistence labor remain plausible as quantitative phenomena or given the multiple pathways by which objects can come to be spuriously associated in the archeological record. Toward resolving the question of gendered big-game hunting practices among early hunter-gatherer populations in the Americas, we report the discovery of two Early Holocene [pre–8 thousand years (ka)] hunter-gatherer burials in association with big-game hunting paraphernalia and place these findings in the context of Early Holocene and Late Pleistocene burial practices throughout the Americas."
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abd0310

2026-04-05 22:43:17 UTC

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That "women have had a raw deal for the entire history of the species” is disinformation. Ask an archeologist about gendered grave goods sometime.

2026-04-05 20:22:43 UTC

#Trump #WalterReed #rumors
"Trump Spokesman Pushes Back as President’s Health Rumours Swirl Online
Speculation about President Donald Trump’s whereabouts swept across social media after unverified posts claimed he had been spotted at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
The rumors, which quickly gained traction online on Saturday, April 4, prompted an official denial from Trump’s spokesman Steven Cheung, who insisted the president had remained at the White House throughout the Easter weekend.
'On this Easter weekend, he has been working nonstop in the White House and Oval Office,' Cheung wrote on X. He added, 'There has never been a President who has worked harder for the American people than President Trump. God Bless him.'
(. . .)
The White House also issued what is known as a 'lid' at 11:08 a.m. on Saturday, a notification to the press pool indicating that the president would not be making any public appearances or holding events for the remainder of the day.
While lids are not unusual, the timing fueled speculation, with journalist Ed Krassenstein noting that an early lid was atypical for Trump, who often travels to Mar-a-Lago on weekends.
Krassenstein’s post suggesting Trump might be at Walter Reed had accumulated over one million views within hours.
Additional unverified claims circulated on Bluesky, where an anonymous user alleged that a major road near Walter Reed had been blocked off and that an emergency meeting was underway at the White House. Neither claim has been independently verified."
https://thekenyatimes.com/americas/trump-at-walter-reed/

2026-04-05 20:14:32 UTC

#Passover
"Passover recalls San Francisco’s brush with neo-Nazis in 1977
On April 1, 1977, the eve of Passover, San Francisco’s identity as a city of peace and love was tested. Just steps from a synagogue in the Outer Sunset, a neo-Nazi bookstore opened its doors, named for Rudolf Hess, commandant of Auschwitz.
Holocaust survivor Tauba Weiss z”l confronted the shop owner and asked if the murder of millions of Jews had not been enough. He answered coldly: 'No, it was not enough.'
Tauba picked up a rock and threw it through the storefront window. Her act of courage sparked a protest, and she was soon joined by other survivors, including her husband, Morris, who hurled the store’s inventory into the street.
This moment galvanized the city’s Jewish community, and within two years, the Holocaust Library and Resource Center, now the JFCS Holocaust Center, was born.
(. . .)
Passover reminds us that Jewish identity is not defined by suffering, but by resilience, by the ways we carry our history forward, and by the choices we make as Jews in the present."
https://jweekly.com/2026/04/01/passover-recalls-san-franciscos-brush-with-neo-nazis-in-1977/

2026-04-05 20:11:45 UTC

#HappyEaster
"Roy Bailey and Leon Rosselson - Stand Up For Judas"
duck://player/b1irXjtkD1Y

2026-04-04 19:27:51 UTC

#ProtestMusic
"Songs for Good: The Sudden Resurgence of the Protest Song
Beginning in the middle of 2025, politically-minded (or just fed up) musicians slowly began making their rage and frustration known. Below is a loose timeline of the recorded protest music thus far in Trump’s final(?) term.
A common refrain during the first Trump presidency was 'With so many people upset, where are the protest songs?'
By no means did musicians remain totally silent, there were a handful of scathing and biting songs like 'Tiny Hands' by Fiona Apple, 'Million Dollar Loan' by Death Cab for Cutie, and the incendiary 'Nobody Speak' by DJ Shadow and Run the Jewels, but nowhere near the creative outpouring of previous generations.
The Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam movements in the late ’50s and ’60s spawned dozens of classic protest anthems, some as pleading as Marvin Gaye‘s 'What’s Goin’ On' and few as eviscerating as 'Mississippi Goddam' by Nina Simone. Even the sneering punks of the anti-Thatcher/Reagan ’80s gave us underground anthems from D.R.I., Dead Kennedys, The Ramones, Billy Bragg, and the obligatory Sex Pistols, not to mention slightly more refined Cold War statements from U2, Sting, Nena, and Bruce Springsteen (even if the majority of the people didn’t fully understand that one).
Something began stirring in Trump’s second term, however. Beginning in the middle of 2025, politically-minded (or just fed up) musicians slowly began making their rage and frustration known. Much like Kent State served as a flashpoint for activism in 1970 (famously captured in CSNY‘s 'Ohio'), the brutal and horrific escalations of I.C.E. in Minneapolis in early 2026 acted as fuel to the fire for this emotion and we started to see a real outpouring of pointed, accusatory, and just plain angry music from some of the sharpest pens. Below is a loose timeline of the recorded protest music thus far in Trump’s final(?) term."
https://www.amherstindy.org/2026/04/03/songs-for-good-the-sudden-resurgence-of-the-protest-song/

2026-04-04 19:27:23 UTC

#ClimateCrisis #YellowstoneNationalPark
"Pages devoted to climate change have disappeared from key Yellowstone guidebook
The latest Yellowstone Resources and Issues Handbook lacks climate change section for the first time in nearly two decades.
Yellowstone National Park visitors over the past few years have been asking park guide Leo Leckie why some Douglas-fir trees between Mammoth Hot Springs and Tower junction are turning red. Their change in color was clearly visible, but the cause wasn’t as apparent.
'You could see the rust-like color on the trees where you never saw that before,' said Leckie, who works for Gardiner-based tour company Yellowstone Wolf Tracker.
Leckie turned to the Yellowstone Resources and Issues Handbook, a compendium of Yellowstone information published annually by the National Park Service. He learned that bark beetles are attacking the trees, and that a warming climate is likely making their assaults more frequent and more severe. 'The resource handbook is always on hand, said Leckie, who has worked in the park since 2010. 'It is the tool that I refer to when clients inevitably ask a question that I can’t answer.'
Last year, the entry that linked beetle infestation to warmer, drier weather disappeared, along with the entire 13-page climate change section. For the first time in nearly 20 years, the handbook does not feature a single chapter dedicated to climate change. The omission occurred as the Trump administration has pressured national parks around the country to remove information on climate change, slavery and the mistreatment of Native Americans."
https://montanafreepress.org/2026/04/03/pages-devoted-to-climate-change-have-disappeared-from-key-yellowstone-national-park-guidebook/

2026-04-04 19:26:25 UTC

#Iran #China #AI
"Chinese firms market Iran war intelligence ‘exposing’ U.S. forces
The private companies — some with ties to the military — are marketing detailed intelligence on movements of U.S. forces, even as Beijing seeks to keep its distance.
As the war in Iran erupted five weeks ago, social media sleuths across Western and Chinese platforms flagged a wave of viral posts detailing equipment at U.S. bases, the movements of American carrier groups and granular breakdowns of how military aircraft were assembling for strikes on Tehran.
The intelligence came from a fast growing new market: Chinese firms — some with links to the People’s Liberation Army — marrying artificial intelligence with open-source data to market information they claim can 'expose' the movements of U.S. forces.
Beijing has sought to distance itself from any direct involvement in the Iran war, but the firms — many of which have emerged in the past five years as part of the government’s push to harness private AI for military use — are capitalizing on the conflict."
https://archive.ph/U7MIm#selection-381.0-405.256

2026-04-04 19:24:47 UTC

#Rumble #RockAndRoll #history #Indigenous
"Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World (2017) - Tubi
This fascinating music documentary examines the musical contributions and influence of indigenous artists on popular culture."
https://tubitv.com/movies/100043840/rumble-the-indians-who-rocked-the-world

2026-04-04 19:24:28 UTC

#malware
"FBI Warns iPhone And Android Users—Do Not Install These Apps
It should be obvious — but unfortunately it’s not. Some of the most popular apps you have likely downloaded on your iPhone or Android smartphone are dangerous. And now the FBI is warning U.S. citizens to stop all such installs.
The bureau’s new Public Service Announcement highlights the 'security risks associated with foreign-developed mobile applications (apps) frequently used in the United States; however, these concerns are global. As of early 2026, many of the most downloaded and top-grossing apps in the United States are developed and maintained by foreign companies, particularly those based in China.'
This warning links back to China’s infamous national security laws, which the FBI reminds smartphone users enables 'the Chinese government to potentially access mobile app users’ data.' In short, the laws mandate developers based in China do all they can to support the country’s national security imperatives — including sharing data. It’s the same mandate that plagued TikTok ahead of its U.S. split."
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/fbi-warns-iphone-android-users-053319444.html

2026-04-02 22:32:25 UTC

#QuantumComputing
"‘It’s a real shock’: quantum-computing breakthroughs pose imminent risks to cybersecurity
Two analyses suggest that quantum computers could crack ubiquitous security keys and cryptocurrencies before the decade is over.
The world could be caught off guard by quantum hackers before the end of this decade — much sooner than previously expected. This is the take-home message of two preprint studies posted independently on 31 March, one by a team at Google1 and the other by Oratomic2, a start-up company in Pasadena, California.
Digital technologies relying on encryption and authentication methods — such as credit card systems, cryptocurrencies and Internet communications — have long been known to be vulnerable to future quantum computers capable of cracking security measures faster than even the largest conventional supercomputers can.
But the assumption among researchers and cybersecurity companies working on quantum-proof encryption technologies has been that these machines would not become a serious threat to digital security for at least ten years.
The preprints, both of which suggest that quantum computers capable of cracking current encryption systems could soon become available, have created a sense of 'renewed urgency', says Jintai Ding, a mathematician at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The findings have prompted 'many discussions among people I know, ranging from academics to bankers and to people who care about cryptocurrencies', says Ding.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01054-1

2026-02-26 22:31:03 UTC

#UFO #ConspiracyTheories #TrumpRegime #BlackVault #hackers #hacking
"A massive public archive of declassified US government files vanished just one day after President Trump ordered the release of all UFO-related documents.
The Black Vault, run by researcher and ufologist John Greenewald Jr, had its main server reportedly wiped clean on February 20, deleting hundreds of gigabytes worth of files on UFOs, declassified CIA projects, and major conspiracies, including the assassination of JFK.
Greenewald shared the news online, explaining that some server directories had their permissions, the safeguards on who can access or edit them, and the file ownership logs changed without explanation.
(. . .)
In simpler terms, someone or something intentionally removed every single file from the Black Vault's server, deleting all the records released by the CIA and other groups, without fully shutting down the site so alarms wouldn't go off right away.
Until recently, the US government has flat-out denied that UFOs or extraterrestrial beings existed, maintaining for decades that there has never been any physical evidence recovered that proves something non-human has ever landed on Earth.
However, Trump's February 19 order came after he publicly criticized former President Barack Obama for saying in an interview that aliens were real. Trump claimed the 44th president had revealed 'classified information.'
Greenewald has previously filed over 11,000 FOIA requests with the US government to obtain these documents, including some declassified reports that date back to the alleged UFO crash landing at Roswell in 1947.
His investigations have also provided legitimate paper trails, detailing how former administrations and the intelligence community created secret task forces of high-ranking military and scientific officials to research UFO incidents.
Luckily for The Black Vault, Greenewald revealed that all of the more than 3.8 million files were backed up in secure locations and the site was restored soon after the mysterious wiping took place.
'It is a stark reminder to us all, me included. Keep backups. Keep them in multiple places. And never be intimidated by anything that comes our way, no matter what we expect may have happened,' the researcher wrote on X."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-15584851/Mystery-UFO-vault-files-wiped-clean-Trump-aliens.html

2026-01-17 21:40:42 UTC

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"The ethical is not halfway between white supremacists and human rights activists, rapists and feminists, synagogue massacrists and Jews, xenophobes and immigrants, delusional transphobes and trans people." -- Rebecca Solnit: On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway

2026-01-17 17:57:27 UTC

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What makes you think they made *any* decisions? They're foot soldiers. Decision making is made by higher ups. That's the nature of war. Back in WWII, the landsers didn't have think. That was the generals' job. All the landsers had to do was "Believe, obey, fight", as the slogan went.

2026-01-07 19:45:39 UTC

#ICE #Minneapolis
"ICE agent shoots, kills woman in Minneapolis
A woman who was shot by an ICE agent Wednesday morning has died, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
In a statement, Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said 'rioters' blocked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with a car and allegedly tried to run them over, something she called 'an act of domestic terrorism'
That’s when an ICE officer opened fire and killed the woman. No ICE agents were seriously hurt.
The shooting has drawn a large crowd of protesters and law enforcement to the area of Portland Avenue and 34th Street in the city’s Central community.
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS reporters on the scene saw an area blocked off with a large number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at the intersection. Chopper footage captured an SUV appearing to be carrying federal agents deploying chemical irritants as it tried to escape through an alley.
Several city officials and MPD officers were seen at the scene.
City Council Vice President Jamal Osman told KSTP that a civilian woman was shot while inside a vehicle, and Gov. Tim Walz said his team is being briefed on the situation.
Both city officials and police are trying to clear the scene.
(. . .)
We are still working to confirm what happened. Check back for updates."
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/ice-agent-shoots-kills-woman-in-minneapolis/

2025-11-15 21:54:36 UTC

#Palantir
"Palantir CEO’s Nazi Dialogues: Inside Karp’s Extremism Strategy
Palantir CEO Alex Karp, a Jewish executive, revealed he engages in conversations with 'real Nazis' to understand extremism, sparking controversy amid the company's AI-driven growth. Drawing from recent interviews and media reports, this deep dive explores his philosophy, backlash, and implications for tech ethics.
In a recent interview, Alex Karp, the outspoken CEO of Palantir Technologies, made headlines by revealing that he spends considerable time conversing with ‘real Nazis’ as part of his effort to understand extremism. This admission, coming from a Jewish executive leading a company deeply embedded in national security and AI, has sparked widespread debate in tech and political circles. Karp’s comments were first highlighted in an article by Futurism, where he explained his rationale amid discussions on AI’s role in society.
Palantir, co-founded by Karp and Peter Thiel in 2003, specializes in data analytics software used by governments and corporations for surveillance and decision-making. The company’s tools have been pivotal in defense and intelligence operations, including collaborations with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and support for Israel, as noted in a Business Insider report. Karp’s personal background—born to a Jewish father and African American mother—adds layers to his provocative statements.
The controversy erupted from Karp’s appearance on the ‘In Good Company’ podcast hosted by Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund. According to Futurism, Karp stated, ‘I spend a lot of time talking to Nazis, like real Nazis,’ emphasizing his intent to grasp the roots of radical ideologies. He further remarked that modern extremists lack the ‘purity’ of historical Nazis, a point that has drawn criticism for potentially downplaying contemporary threats."
https://www.webpronews.com/palantir-ceos-nazi-dialogues-inside-karps-extremism-strategy/

2025-11-15 21:44:46 UTC

#Franco #bikinis #CultureWar
"When the mayor of a small beach town in Spain mounted a defense of the bikini in 1953, he had no idea it would trigger the fall of Franco’s Fascist regime
Modernity comes in many forms. It might manifest itself as a technology, a fashion design, or new music. Change, both social and political, then radiates outward from that small innovation. In 1950s Spain, modernity arrived as two small pieces of colorful fabric worn at the beach. It’s fair to say that the bikini was instrumental in Spain’s modernization. It might even be argued that it destroyed Fascism.
Spain under Generalissimo Francisco Franco was a bastion of conservatism, a proudly backward nation. His prime minister, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, insisted that progress undermined stability. To offer change to a Spaniard, he argued, was like offering a drink to an alcoholic. Conservatism, however, was enormously costly; by actively impeding progress, Franco ensured that Spain remained a very poor country."
https://archive.ph/8b5B7#selection-941.0-951.370

2025-11-15 21:42:00 UTC

#RFKJr #quackery
"More Americans are injecting themselves with unapproved chemicals that are pitched as ways to build muscle, rejuvenate skin and extend life, the latest example of the nation’s fascination with alternative therapies and wellness hacks.
Behind the trend is the surging popularity of GLP-1 weight loss medications, a class of so-called peptides approved to help users quickly shed pounds.
But the peptides being promoted by influencers, celebrities and wellness gurus are different: Many have never been approved for human use and much of their purported evidence comes from studies in rats and other animals. Several peptides, such as BPC-157 and TB-500, are banned by international sports authorities as doping substances.
'None of them are proven,' said Dr. Eric Topol, a research methods expert and director of Scripps Research Translational Institute. 'None of them have gone through what would be considered adequate clinical trials, but nonetheless many people are taking these. It’s actually quite extraordinary.'
Those who’ve highlighted peptides’ benefits include Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has built a national following among Americans who are deeply skeptical of health experts, pharmaceutical companies and traditional medicine."
https://apnews.com/article/peptide-injections-rfk-maha-4d48e78a5d65658b4d6eac87818352e3

2025-11-13 00:51:33 UTC

#WWII #history #Netherlands
"A Dutch war cemetery added displays showing black US soldiers. Then they were quietly removed
Relatives fear the move is part of ‘the same virus affecting the US’, as historians and politicians say it coincided with Trump’s DEI purge.
(. . .)
Local organisations, meanwhile, stress that all of the sacrifices are remembered. The Foundation for Adopting Graves at the American Cemetery Margraten, which manages the adoption programme, said that it remembered everyone, whatever their sex, race or rank. 'For all these years, the adopters have remembered and honoured ‘their soldier’ who between 1944 and 1945 made the greatest sacrifice they could make for our freedom,' said Frans Roebroeks, the foundation’s secretary.
This sense of gratitude transcends modern-day politics, according to Rob O’Brien, the director of a documentary, *The Adopted*, which is being filmed about the relationships between local grave adopters and the dead soldiers’ families. 'That community is totally impervious to political interpretation,' he said. 'It doesn’t really matter what is going on in the world … putting flowers on a soldier’s grave, who you never even knew, telling their story over and over again, saying a prayer, Margraten’s adopters have been doing this for 80 years. And they will do it for another 80 more, because no one around here wants this to happen again.'
On Monday morning, as the sun warmed away the morning dew, regardless of the political storm, fresh flowers lay at Morris’s grave."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/11/displays-black-soldiers-african-american-margraten-cemetery-netherlands

2025-11-07 20:19:35 UTC

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The most important thing we can learn from the Global South, espcially Bangladesh, is that mass action driving fascists from national power is only the first step.

2025-11-05 02:55:49 UTC

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IMHO we should all do whatever it takes to not let it grow and spread. Low level is bad enough. We're armed to the teeth. It would be a bloodbath with an uncertain outcome. Civil War II is a very, very, very bad idea. Even I can see that, and I'm no Einstein. It's hard to miss how bad it would be for most of us.
What I fail to see is cui bono? Not me, that's for sure. Probably not you, either. So it directly behooves us to stop it from happening. There are sinister (accelerationist) forces working to make it happen. They have friends in high places. Their friends in high places have a *lot* of money to spend.
At the moment, the regime is on a roll, but how much does the calculus change if it starts to see military support erode? There's a line in the Oath that cites enemies both foreign and domestic. Most people who take oaths take them very seriously. Hopefully this is true even of Americans.

2025-10-26 19:12:59 UTC

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That's a class trait not a national trait.

2025-10-26 17:32:56 UTC

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Indeed it is, murder, too.

2025-10-22 04:02:55 UTC

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Working with what we got is what got us into this mess in the first place. What we got is corrupt to the core. Any system that not only allows, but also enables, amoral psychopaths, mobsters, grifters, and racists to accumulate power is the root of the problem.
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." -- Henry David Thoreau

2025-10-01 21:34:31 UTC

#Trump #MetalHealth
"The Commander in Chief Is Not Okay
Trump put on a disturbing show for America’s generals and admirals.
(. . .)
In 1973, an Air Force nuclear-missile officer named Harold Hering asked a simple question during a training session: 'How can I know that an order I receive to launch my missiles came from a sane president?' The question cost him his career. Military members are trained to execute orders, not question them. But today, both the man who can order the use of nuclear arms and the man who would likely verify such an order gave disgraceful and unnerving performances in Quantico. How many officers left the room asking themselves Major Hering’s question"
https://archive.ph/5iIkv

2025-09-11 13:52:00 UTC

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Try reloading the page first. Sometimes that works.
Remember, this place is still a work in progress. The devs and the admins are not on salary. It's a labor of love. They're doing the best possible job, considering how few they are and how much needs done. So let's cut them some slack. The threading here still leaves a lot to be desired but it's already improved since I showed in '22. I like to think of project as something organic. It's growing like a tree. New branches constantly appear and already the tree is bearing fruit.

2025-08-19 14:55:51 UTC

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I had totally forgotten. It must be a side effect of my stroke. Or maybe it's my age. Sorry. The spirit is willing but the mind is weak.

2025-08-09 02:00:59 UTC

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We had all that.

2025-07-11 18:36:03 UTC

#Serbia #genocide #Breivik #Karadzic
"How The Genocide In Srebrenica Became A Model For Global Far-Right Terror
(. . .)
More than 8.300 Bosniaks were killed in Srebrenica in 1995, and today international far-right extremists are turning the criminals from that time into heroes, and portraying the genocide as a supposed 'defense of Europe.'
Emir Suljagic, genocide survivor and director of the Srebrenica Memorial Center, said in an interview: 'We must not forget that Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) was the first testing ground for the global far right.'
According to media reports, neo-Nazis from across Europe traveled to BiH during the war in order, as the current general secretary of the NPD (Heimat) party later said, 'to kill Muslims.'
The connection between Serbian nationalism and global far-right terrorism has not disappeared. On the contrary, Serbian nationalism, along with the denial and glorification of the genocide in Srebrenica, is today a central narrative of the international far right.
(. . .)
Radovan Karadzic, co-responsible and convicted for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity, later called the genocide 'just and holy,' and a defense against an alleged 'Islamic caliphate.' For followers of that ideology, the murderers are heroes who defended the European continent and tried to preserve the 'Christian heritage.' The war in BiH, in which more than 100.000 people died, in that distorted narrative becomes a symbolic battle between Christianity and Islam.
The myth of the Christian 'Fortress'
Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik said during his trial a significant sentence: 'If the far right in Europe ever succeeds again, it must distance itself from the ideas of the old school.' By 'old school,' he meant National Socialism. At the same time, he called for the creation of a 'new identity.'
That new identity is reflected in his manifesto. In it, he mentioned Kosovo 143 times, Serbia 341 times, Albania 208 times, and BiH 232 times. In Breivik’s vision of Southeast Europe, 'Serbs' fight against 'Muslims' to 'liberate' the European continent from them. Breivik was particularly fascinated by how Karadzic presented the war in BiH to the West – in his logic, BiH was an 'unnatural' society because it was multicultural.
It is pointed out that Bosniaks were also subjected to slaughter in the past, during World War II, when Serbian Nazi collaborators tried to annihilate them. But in that ideology, the victims of genocide are mocked, their murder relativized, denied, or portrayed as self-defense."
https://sarajevotimes.com/how-the-genocide-in-srebrenica-became-a-model-for-global-far-right-terror/

2025-05-26 23:50:54 UTC

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In a way that's reassuring. It turns out that Russians are more like us tan we are, and vice versa. Russians are not our enemy. Russia is not our enemy. Putin is our enemy. He's their enemy, too, at least in the Catch 22 sense, i.e. anyone who is trying to get you killed is your enemy. He's pouring the flower of Russian youth into a meat grinder. Yeah, Ukraine will run out of canon fodder first, but so what? That means nothing to dead of either side. Either way, they'll still be dead.
We can never get rid of Putin. Only Russians can do that. A steadily growing number of them want to do that. They need help. We're not helping. We're giving him strength and making him look good. It's counterproductive. He's a class-A villain. Trump's worse, but so what? A villain is a villain is a villain. Down with them all.

2025-05-26 15:40:57 UTC

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Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic is self-evidently futile. In the short term, we need life boats. In the long term we need a plan. Only #LibertarianSocialism can save us from capitalism. It's a proven system, already up and running (see: #NoBAWC, #Mondragon, etc.), it needs to grow. Capitalism needs to die.

2025-05-25 23:08:07 UTC

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There has been a resilient, dynamic, grassroots, fascist movement in America for as long as there have been fascists. Trump is not their leader. He's their current mascot. He's replaceable.

2025-05-06 01:42:37 UTC

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Trump is not the problem. Trump is a symptom of the problem. The system itself is the problem.
There has been grassroots fascist movement in America for a century, Trump is not its leader. He's its current mascot. They'll just find a new one.

2025-05-06 01:29:07 UTC

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Do you want Vance in the job?

2025-05-04 19:33:17 UTC

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The Russia/Ukraine war is a conventional war between two nation states. As an anarchist, I condemn both of them, all nation states, and anyone who supports *any* war but the Class War.

2025-05-04 19:09:22 UTC

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Why are there so many war mongers on here? How many of them have actually *fought* in a war ever in their lives?
"War? What is it good for? Absolutely nothing." -- Norman Whitfield & Barrett Strong, as sung by Edwin Starr, 1969

2025-05-04 17:28:54 UTC

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*Some* Kremlin talking points are ctually true, unlike DC's talking points, most of which are baldfaced lies.
See also:
https://kolektiva.social/@LevZadov/114450616507794932

2025-05-02 22:47:46 UTC

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If this is really disinfo, you could prove it. Please do.

2025-05-01 21:12:30 UTC

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There is no reason for lefties/radicals to be on Substack, or for that matter, on Bluesky. That's what the Fediverse is for.

2025-05-01 18:22:30 UTC

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There's a reason for that.

2025-05-01 17:54:16 UTC

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I live in America. That's how it is right now. For a lot of people that's how it has always been. You can ignore us all you want, but we're not going away. The only reasons I haven't left this place is I don't have enough money.
Sanity is facing reality for what it is and doing something about it.
You can ignore reality all you want but you can't ignore it into not existing. Believing you can is nuts.
I'm a realist. You're a troll. Go away.

2025-04-30 21:50:08 UTC

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It's not a mechanism. It's an implement with which to level the playing field between individuals. For example:
I'm a 76 year old, four eyed, gimpy legged, stroke survivor. I used to have superior balance. I rode a motorcycle in traffic for decades and never got killed, not even once. Now I never know when the floor is going to start feeling like a boat deck. Fisticuffs are no longer an option.
My SO is just shy of 80 and stands just shy of five feet. If even a lone thug broke in here to rob us, or worse, we would not be his physical equal, but for our guns.
It doesn't scale to social level. Guns can't bring us economic equality. We tried that. It didn't work. There is no military solution to capitalism. It's not a military problem. It's an economic problem. It needs economic solutions. Want equality? Replace capitalism with #LibertarianSocialism. Bada bing. Problem solved. Well, that particular problem, anyway. But inequality is not our only problem.

2025-04-28 21:22:10 UTC

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Someone else would take his place. He's not the only billionaire.
"The capitalist has no heart, but harpoon him in the pocketbook and you will draw blood." --Big Bill Haywood

2025-04-28 20:23:54 UTC

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debunked

2025-04-28 20:10:22 UTC

#archeology
"In a preprint paper, scientists concluded that the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, Egypt—believed to be the oldest of the seven monumental pyramids and potentially constructed about 4,500 years ago—offers a remarkable blueprint for hydraulic engineering.
The hydraulic-powered mechanism could have maneuvered the oversized stone blocks forming the pyramid, starting from the ground up. The research team says the Step Pyramid’s internal architecture is consistent with a hydraulic elevation mechanism, something that’s never been reported before at that place or in that time."
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/archaeology/a64514781/ancient-pyramid-hydraulic-system-discovery/

2025-04-17 00:21:37 UTC

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Would a citizen arrest work?

2025-04-17 00:05:38 UTC

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Key word: "most"

2025-04-17 00:04:38 UTC

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"The only way to win is through organized cooperation and violence" is what's called "diversity of tactics''. It works when neither violence nor non-violence works.

2025-04-16 23:48:51 UTC

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“Liberal: a power worshiper without power.” -- George Orwell

2025-04-16 23:45:58 UTC

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Democrats? Feh. Good cop, bad cop, both cops.

2025-04-16 16:52:54 UTC

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Bypass the paywall:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250416140038/https://www.404media.co/ice-just-paid-palantir-tens-of-millions-for-complete-target-analysis-of-known-populations/

2025-04-16 16:32:57 UTC

#PublicSchools #indoctrination #LGBTQ
"Remember Florida’s 'Don’t Say Gay' law?
The unconstitutionally vague law imposed such unclear restrictions on teachers who speak about sexual orientation or gender identity that many feared they could be fired merely for mentioning their spouses. Eventually, Florida agreed to a settlement which affirmed its right to do things like excluding Harvey Milk from the state history curriculum, but which also clarified that teachers may refer to the concept of being gay.
Now, however, the Supreme Court will hear a case that could impose a regime similar to Florida’s original Don’t Say Gay law on every public school in the country. The plaintiffs in Mahmoud v. Taylor — a group of Muslim and Christian parents — don’t specifically ask the justices to ban discussions of homosexuality or gender identity from classrooms. Instead, they seek a right to be notified if their children are about to be taught from certain books they claim contain LGBTQ themes, as well as an opportunity to opt those children out of the lessons.
To grant this request, they want the Court to embrace a legal rule that would place such heavy obligations on teachers who discuss these topics that it is unclear whether they would practically be able to do so. Furthermore, even if public schools tried to comply with these disclosure requirements, they are so burdensome that doing so would likely be impossible."
https://www.vox.com/scotus/408356/supreme-court-mahmoud-taylor-dont-say-gay

2025-04-16 16:32:31 UTC

#PublicSchools #indoctrination #patriarchy
"Public schools in America are becoming testing grounds for a tenuous theory: that poverty can be avoided by making three choices in the right order.
Tennessee lawmakers passed a bill this month requiring schools to teach students this so-called success sequence: that if you graduate from high school, get a full-time job, and wait until marriage to have children, you’ll likely be 'successful' in avoiding poverty. Utah lawmakers passed their own success sequence resolution in 2024, and states including Ohio, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Texas considered similar legislation this year.
This wave of education policy largely originates from model legislation provided by the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that published the influential Project 2025 agenda. It represents a growing effort to codify a particular view of mobility into public school curricula, one that suggests personal choices primarily drive economic prosperity. While the sequence enjoys real popularity across party lines — and to many casual observers sounds fairly innocuous as life advice — policy experts say the actual evidence underpinning its anti-poverty message is thin and vastly overstated."
https://www.vox.com/poverty/408705/schools-success-sequence-poverty-education-marriage

2025-04-16 16:12:30 UTC

#forests
"Like many residents, Torry Nergart and his family live in the mountains of western North Carolina because they love being close to the forests, rivers and public lands.
That is making them feel particularly protective since President Donald Trump last month ordered a major boost to U.S. timber production, seeking to strip regulations and speed up approval.
Within hours of the orders being issued, Nergart and hundreds of other people gathered in the town of Brevard, at the entrance to the half-million-acre Pisgah National Forest, to share their concerns.
'It touches almost every element of life and culture here,' Nergart told Context. 'Everyone has a stake.'
Worries about the impacts on recreation, conservation, sedimentation and flooding raise questions of what could happen to the local economy, he added.
'This whole economy has grown up around this,' Nergart said."
https://www.context.news/nature/trump-logging-order-sparks-fears-for-us-southeast-forests

2025-04-16 16:12:05 UTC

#TeslaTakedown #MAGAts
"MAGA protestors surrounded a Tesla store in California with their gas trucks in what has to be the least effective counterprotest ever.
When you need MAGA and Proud Boys to counter-protest for your brand, you know your brand is in trouble.
The ‘Tesla Takedown‘ movement is a grassroots movement that has been organizing peaceful protests at Tesla stores throughout the US.
Their goal is to encourage a boycott of Tesla, which they see as Elon Musk’s personal piggy bank to finance the rise of what they believe is Trump’s authoritarian regime and fascism.
Every weekend for the past two months, they have been holding growing protests at dozens of Tesla locations across the US.
There have been quite a few altercations with Trump supporters counter-protesting, but we are now starting to see full-fledged counter-protests by MAGA supporters and even far-right neo-fascist groups, like the Proud Boys.
At Tesla’s store in Rocklin, California, MAGA came by the dozens to counter-protest a Tesla protest with a barrage of gasoline trucks in front of the store"
https://electrek.co/2025/04/15/maga-tesla-store-gas-trucks-least-effective-counterprotest-ever/?extended-comments=1

2025-04-16 16:11:34 UTC

#ClimateCrisis #gender
"Globally, fieldworkers and researchers have found an association between environmental stress and domestic violence, citing extensive anecdotal testimony following disasters — as well as peer-reviewed studies.
In 2023, Mongabay Indonesia reported from a fishing community in Jakarta where many girls face child marriage, a form of gender-based violence, owing to economic decline linked to overfishing and the rising cost of living.
'As climate change impacts access to resources and livelihoods, women and girls, especially those experiencing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, face heightened risks of gender-based violence,' the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) noted in a 2023 report on gender-based violence and climate change in the Arab region.
“There are hardly any other jobs or activities, so men sit idle all day,” a resident of Pakistan’s Sindh province told U.K.-based charity Oxfam following catastrophic floods there in 2022. 'The frustration of poverty results in acts of violence and women bear the brunt.'
A review of public health surveys and rainfall data in 19 sub-Saharan African countries found an association between drought and violence against women and girls, with the link stronger among unemployed women.
Similarly, research has found that water stress in refugee camps in Jordan, home to more than 1 million refugees from Syria and elsewhere, may be linked to increases in reported cases of gender-based violence.
Civil society groups working on coastlines in Indonesia say that land subsidence, coastal abrasion and the longer-term effects of rising seas, combined with a shortfall of adaptation funds, puts women and girls here at increased risk.
'Our conclusion is that women and children, as well as poor families, including the elderly and disabled, are the most vulnerable,' Hermawati Sasongko, who leads the Semarang office of LBH Apik, a women-centered legal aid nonprofit, told Mongabay Indonesia."
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/in-an-ancient-javanese-sultanate-coastal-women-battle-climate-fallout/

2025-04-16 16:10:35 UTC

#LGBTQI #Pride #EastBay
"The Ivy Room, a beloved East Bay dive bar and music venue frequented by Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, announced it is cutting ties with one of the world’s largest alcohol conglomerates after Diageo ended its sponsorship of San Francisco Pride.
'(W)e just can’t support a company that makes business decisions based on hatred,' the Ivy Room posted Monday, April 14, on Facebook, saying it will no longer carry Ketel One vodka, Tanqueray gin, Bulleit and Johnnie Walker whiskeys, Captain Morgan rum, and other popular labels.
Diageo, which owns more than 200 brands and operates in nearly 180 countries, confirmed it had made 'some changes' to its sponsorship budget but noted it is still backing a smaller Pride event in Long Beach.
The alcoholic beverage company did not immediately return a request for comment.
Diageo’s exit comes amid a broader corporate retreat from LGBTQ+ sponsorship.
Suzanne Ford, executive director of San Francisco Pride, confirmed several longtime supporters — including Meta, Comcast and Anheuser-Busch — pulled roughly $300,000 in funding this year, despite long-standing relationships with the organization.
Ford attributes the exodus to a shifting political climate under the Trump administration, which has aggressively dismantled diversity and LGBTQ+ protections."
https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/east-bay-bar-pride-sponsorship-20277776.php

2025-04-16 16:09:41 UTC

#TrumpRegime #FEMA
"Trump administration denies FEMA funds to Democratic-led states
Late last week, the Trump administration officially denied the state of Washington’s request for disaster aid to assist with recovery efforts related to last year’s 'bomb cyclone' that killed at least two people and damaged hundreds of homes and businesses.
(. . .)
Denying federal disaster aid to areas led by Democrats has become a trend for President Donald Trump — one that dates to 2018, when his first administration withheld aid from Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-administration-denies-fema-funds-211426921.html

2025-04-16 16:09:23 UTC

Quote of the day.
"The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." -- George Orwell, *1984*

2025-04-16 06:27:45 UTC

- reply

Cowardice.

2025-04-16 06:25:37 UTC

- reply

Republicans are evil. Democrats are merely incompetent.

2025-04-16 00:36:22 UTC

- reply

Me either, nor did I argue in favor. I just noted the facts of the matter. Make of them what you will.

2025-04-16 00:26:38 UTC

#ClimateCrisis #France #media
"Climate disinformation was routinely broadcast in news programmes across French TV and radio in the first three months of 2025, with 128 verified cases identified by an alliance of NGOs.
Using AI to identify misleading narratives, which were then reviewed by fact-checkers, the alliance assessed programmes classed as 'news' by the French broadcast regulator ARCOM from 19 TV and radio stations.
A preliminary report was produced by the French NGOs Data For Good, QuotaClimat, and Science Feedback. The study also identified 379 cases of ‘discourses of delay’ – arguments intended to slow the transition to carbon neutrality by undermining climate science, solutions or experts – which focused particularly on discrediting advocates of net zero. The final results will be published in September."
https://www.desmog.com/2025/04/15/climate-disinformation-normalised-on-french-tv-and-radio-report-finds/

2025-04-16 00:26:14 UTC

#ClimateCrisis #Seattle
"For Peter Hasegawa, it all started with the heat dome. The labor organizer remembers the 2021 extreme heat event that killed more than 400 people in the state of Washington. That disaster woke up residents and union members to how deadly climate change can be. Although Seattle had passed climate action legislation in 2019, it became clear to Hasegawa and the union members he represented that even though the city was preparing to wean itself off fossil fuels, it was still ill-prepared to deal with the impacts of a warming planet.
This led Hasegawa last fall to South Seattle College, the setting for MLK Labor’s community assembly on extreme weather and worker rights. One October evening, a lecture hall filled with union workers, including teachers, firefighters, home health care workers, postal workers, and more, ready to try out the Community Assembly model. Community Assemblies are participatory spaces where people come together to learn, deliberate, and make collective decisions on programs and policies that influence the actions of government and community action. Hasegawa watched closely as the assembly unfolded."
https://grist.org/sponsored/looking-to-create-effective-climate-change-policy-community-assembly-seattle/

2025-04-16 00:25:50 UTC

#immigration #repression #psywar
"A Massachusetts-born immigration attorney was stunned after receiving an email from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ordering her to leave the country within seven days—even though she is a U.S. citizen.
Nicole Micheroni, a 40-year-old immigration lawyer from Newton, Massachusetts, has spent her career helping clients navigate deportation threats and immigration paperwork, as reported by NBC Boston. Due to her line of work, her name and contact information frequently appear on immigration forms.
(. . .)
'The language in the email is very threatening,' she told the outlet. 'And it looks kind of like a sketchy spam email. It doesn't look like an official government notice, but it is.'
Additionally, Micheroni shared her experience on social media, sparking widespread concern and debate. Her post has since garnered thousands of responses from across the globe, with many expressing alarm at how such a significant error could happen.
DHS responded by stating they are addressing these mistakes on a case-by-case basis, but critics argue that the incident points to deeper systemic carelessness."
https://www.latintimes.com/immigration-attorney-received-threatening-email-dhs-telling-her-self-deport-shes-us-citizen-580638

2025-04-16 00:25:14 UTC

#NeilYoung
'Daryl Hannah has claimed that the first Trump administration 'tried every trick in the book' to 'mess' with Neil Young while he was going through the process of becoming an American citizen.
Actor and director Hannah, who is the girlfriend and collaborative partner of the veteran rocker, made the revelation as she spoke about her new documentary, Neil Young: Coastal, about his 2023 solo tour.
Young, 79, recently expressed his concern that he could be barred from the US upon his return from his European tour – which includes headline performances at Glastonbury and the Montreux Jazz Festival this summer – due to his outspoken views on the US president.
'If I talk about Donald J Trump, I may be one of those returning to America who is barred or put in jail to sleep on a cement floor with an aluminium blanket,' he wrote on his website, following a rise in the number of people being detained and deported upon entering the country."
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/neil-young-american-citizenship-trump-daryl-hannah-b2732778.html

2025-04-16 00:24:35 UTC

#neoNazis #military
"The discovery of a U.S. Army soldier, currently serving in the 1st Infantry Division, following a secret TikTok account operated by proscribed neo-Nazi terrorist group The Base has reignited concerns about the Pentagon's approach to extremism within the armed forces, especially after a February memo halted efforts to track and counter such threats.
The Base, designated as a terrorist organization by several U.S. allies including the U.K. and Canada, has previously been the focus of FBI investigations for promoting sabotage, assassination, and the establishment of paramilitary units.
(. . .)
However, critics argue that leadership under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has deprioritized combating far-right extremism. On February 25, the Department of Defense inspector general's office issued a memo halting an assessment of how military branches implement counter-extremism training. The memo cited misalignment with President Donald Trump's executive orders as the reason for the decision.
Mollie Halpern, spokesperson for the Pentagon's IG office, stated that content connected to extremist ideologies 'falls under the DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] umbrella,' which the new administration has moved to restrict or eliminate."
https://www.latintimes.com/pentagon-accused-turning-blind-eye-extremism-ranks-soldier-revealed-neo-nazi-tiktok-follower-580683

2025-04-16 00:24:06 UTC

#GreenCards
"Even green card holders are not safe from illegal deportations, a recent arrest has proven. On Monday, Palestine-born Mohsen Mahdawi was detained in Vermont despite holding a green card. After living in the U.S. for ten years, Mahdawi, a student at Columbia University, had hopes of passing his interview to become a naturalized citizen.
However, such dreams were dashed as he was arrested while attending the interview at the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Colchester, Vermont. Footage capturing the moment Mahdawi was taken into custody from the interview surfaced on X.
(. . .)
Up until 2024, Mahdawi was one of the leaders of the pro-Palestine student protest movement. In 2023, he was tagged as anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas after a lecturer at the University published a thread about the protest organizers.
Unfortunately, since Trump took office, there has been heavy scrutiny on foreign students participating in the campus pro-Palestine movement. Mahdawi is now facing a deportation order"
https://thenerdstash.com/palestinian-born-green-card-holder-apprehended-in-vermont-while-attending-interview-to-become-u-s-citizen-fully-a-fascist-country/

2025-04-16 00:23:29 UTC

#StephenMiller #AbregoGarcia
"Stephen Miller has now decided, with no evidence provided, that Abrego Garcia is a 'prominent' leader of MS-13, a gang on which DOJ focused closely for the entirety of the first Trump Administration. Miller says that Abrego Garcia is a danger to the community. Miller keeps screeching about terrorism.
If what Miller is saying now is true, it means that Trump released a dangerous criminal back in 2019. Why did Trump leave this man on the street to do dangerous things like raising three American citizen children for six years?
(. . .)
Miller has been accusing journalists who describe the contributions Abrego Garcia has made as a loving father to three American citizen children of lying, because journalists refuse to repeat his bleated accusations of terrorism with no evidence. Miller and Pam Bondi are working hard to get people to dumbly adopt their accusations.
But why is Miller so afraid of journalists describing Abrego Garcia as what he is, a father from Maryland?
When DOJ decided to retcon this case, they scapegoated the lawyer from whom they had withheld any sound legal basis, Erez Reuvani, along with his supervisor, both of whom were put on leave.
This, in spite of the fact that Drew Ensign called Reuveni 'top notched' when he promoted him just weeks earlier."
https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/04/15/why-did-donald-trump-free-someone-he-purports-to-be-a-dangerous-terrorist/

2025-04-16 00:22:45 UTC

#whistleblowers #DOGE #NLRB
"When a team of advisers from President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency initiative arrived at the headquarters of the National Labor Relations Board, IT employees at the small, independent agency quickly became worried, according to a whistleblower declaration filed with Congress and shared with NPR.
The NLRB investigates and adjudicates complaints about unfair labor practices. Its databases store reams of potentially sensitive data, from confidential information about employees who want to form unions to proprietary business information.
The DOGE employees, who are effectively led by White House adviser and billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk, appeared to set their sights on accessing the NLRB's internal systems, removing sensitive data and covering their tracks.
(. . .)
'I can't attest to what their end goal was or what they're doing with the data,' said the whistleblower, Daniel Berulis, in an interview with NPR. 'But I can tell you that the bits of the puzzle that I can quantify are scary. ... This is a very bad picture we're looking at.'"
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5355895/doge-musk-nlrb-takeaways-security

2025-04-16 00:22:00 UTC

#pronouns
"You know those email signatures at the end of messages? The ones that include a range of information about the senders — phone numbers, addresses, social media handles. And in recent years, pronouns — letting the recipient know that the sender goes by 'she,' 'he,' 'they' or something else, a digital acknowledgement that people claim a range of gender identities.
Among those who don’t agree with that are President Donald Trump and members of his administration. They have taken aim at what he calls 'gender ideology' with measures like an executive order requiring the United States to recognize only two biological sexes, male and female. Federal employees were told to take any references to their pronouns out of their email signatures.
That stance seems to have spread beyond those who work for the government to those covering it. According to some journalists’ accounts, officials in the administration have refused to engage with reporters who have pronouns listed in their signatures."
https://apnews.com/article/white-house-emails-pronouns-transgender-7cec13e2872bb07459bc3a630160577d

2025-04-16 00:19:09 UTC

#NASA #BudgetCuts
"Nicky Fox, NASA’s associate administrator for science, told the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee on April 1 that the agency had not run any scenarios on what NASA would do if funding was cut 50%, because the agency had not yet seen the Trump administration’s 2026 budget request. Well, some folks have seen it—and it ain’t pretty.
According to SpaceNews, Fox said that 'a 50% cut is going to result in some pretty drastic decisions.' I hope your pencils are sharpened, NASA budget folks, as you may not be able to afford sharpeners next year.
https://gizmodo.com/sneak-preview-of-trumps-2026-nasa-budget-is-a-science-killing-horror-show-2000588223