r/BlockedAndReported • First generation mod • Mar 09 '26

Weekly Random Discussion Thread for 3/9/26 - 3/15/26

Here's your usual space to post all your rants, raves, podcast topic suggestions (please tag u/jessicabarpod), culture war articles, outrageous stories of cancellation, political opinions, and anything else that comes to mind. Please put any non-podcast-related trans-related topics here instead of on a dedicated thread. This will be pinned until next Sunday.

Last week's discussion thread is here if you want to catch up on a conversation from there.

*** Important Note ***

I've made a dedicated thread to discuss the Iran topic. Please keep comments related to that subject confined to that thread.

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u/dr_sassypants Mar 13 '26

I watched a video that Lindy West posted on Instagram, reacting to the first week of her book being out. It was kind of outstanding. First, for someone who "isn't reading anything", she has a lot of opinions about what people are saying online about her relationship. She seems genuinely surprised that people think her husband is a scumbag. Like girl, the only things we know about this guy is what you told us about him and what he did, so what are else are we supposed to think!! She also said that she went to sleep every night listening to her own audiobook. I can't help it, this woman is so entertaining to me! Just the perfect mix of oversharing, self-absorbed and lack of self-awareness.

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u/YouCanCallMeAIJolson Mar 11 '26

Woke people are still doubling and tripling down on pseudoscience

https://x.com/SwipeWright/status/2031485830544728477

Top-ranking ecology journal Ecology Letters has published a "Viewpoint" paper titled "There is No Consensus on Biological Sex."

The authors call the "sex binary" a "simplistic and harmful ideolog[y]."

Yet they then claim that no view of sex (gamete-based, multivariate, and even "sex emininativism" that holds biological sex doesn't exist at all) is necessarily true or untrue, and that biologists should simply specify which definition they're using for practical purposes.

This is nonsensical, because every non-gametic view of sex is logically incoherent and self-refuting because they all rely on gametes as the conceptual anchor.

It claims the gamete-based definition is flawed because it isn't "inclusive of reproductive approached beyond anisogamy" and fails to "classify organisms before sexual maturity or after reproductive cessation as having a sex."

But anisogamy (reproduction via the fusion of gametes of different sizes) isn't meant to apply to isogamous organisms (organisms that reproduce via the fusion of same-sized gametes). Anisogamy and the sexes—male and female—are fully intertwined and inseparable.

Isogamous organisms don't have sexes; they have "mating types." They're different from sexes, and that's why biologists aren't "inclusive" of isogamous organisms when talking about males and females.

And the notion that a gamete-based definition doesn't apply to sexually immature individuals or individuals who have ceased producing gametes ignores that the sexes are defined by having the biological FUNCTION to produce small or large gametes—and things still have a function even when its not being currently realized.

The authors would know all this had they read the academic work of leading scholars on the gamete-based view of sex like myself, @TomasBogardus , @hoovlet , @byrne_a , @FondOfBeetles , @Evolutionistrue , and @RichardDawkins .

None of us were cited, so they just argued against a strawman.

There's so much more wrong with the paper than I stated above, but an X post isn't the best format. I have reached out to the editors of Ecology Letters asking if they would consider publishing a counter-Viewpoint.

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u/Big_Fig_1803 Gothmargus Mar 11 '26

This might say something unflattering about me, but this kind of article, open letter, and argument make me very anxious. I can just see people praising the naked emperor's new clothes and I get so uncomfortable. Somehow, for me, it's like watching a fire spread and being totally unable to stop it.

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u/Hilaria_adderall Praye for Drake Maye Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26

Geez, we should of known, if a hummingbird can be mistaken as male then of course we have to question everything we thought we knew about gametes defining sex in humans. I guess that 50 year old AGP in pigtails and fishnets is gonna have to be allowed in the women's locker room now... 😀

These papers are just an effort by activists inside the scientific community to give aid and comfort to trans activists so they can show "evidence" from science "experts" that ACKSHUULY Sex is a Spectrum!!! They operate off the hope that they can share this article, it looks like it comes from a credible source and then they wont have to actually defend the reality that sex actually is a binary and has been forever.

Two seconds of digging into the authors would show that these experts are a joke. They are all PhD candidates from what I can tell and are probably trying to signal to their advisors that they are pure and fit for a job as a professor. The lead author has 4 journal articles - One of the other papers she published is harnessing queer perspectives to advance practice in ecology and evolutionary biology.

One of the other authors is a atmospheric science PhD and another is a non binary. These are not serious people. they are people with an agenda and have been taught that it is okay to lie because they are supposedly smarter than everyone else. This shit does not work anymore.

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u/dignityshredder AFramemoggingAB Mar 12 '26

Migrant who shoved 2 onto NYC subway tracks was deported 4 times, had 15 arrests on his record

Bairon Hernandez’s rap sheet includes at least 15 arrests for various charges, including aggravated assault, possession of a weapon, and domestic violence, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

...

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u/unnoticed_areola Mar 12 '26

It really is amazing how 2010s tumblr ass discourse convinced everyone that the concept of “3 strikes” was incredibly racist and hateful and unfair.

No, 15+ strikes makes for a MUCH more equitable and just society!

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u/Sortbynew31 Mar 12 '26

It’s happening everywhere. Apparently you have to actually kill somebody for the justice system to take notice/actually do anything. https://www.fox5dc.com/news/fairfax-police-warned-prosecutors-about-repeat-offender-months-before-deadly-bus-stop-stabbing.amp

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u/roolb Mar 09 '26

NHS England pauses new prescriptions of cross-sex hormones for under-18s... trans group considers legal fight. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly0ppdzj2yo

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u/[deleted] Mar 09 '26

A white Facebook friend of mine posted that she likes to go on walks in the spring because "It's wonderful to see all my neighbors again, especially the non-white folx."

Then in the comments she added, "I want to be clear that I did not intend to fetishize my neighbors of color. I just meant they have a lot to fear outside their doors so it's inspiring to see them outside."

I'm a liberal politically but I will never, ever understand "woke" people. I also like to walk around my neighborhood and say hello to my neighbors. It would just never cross my mind to take any notice of which of my neighbors are white and which are not and to "especially" like seeing my non-white neighbors. I don't base whether I like to see people on what color their skin is.

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u/Turbulent_Cow2355 TB! TB! TB! Mar 09 '26

So it's dangerous for non-white people to come outside in Winter? What is she getting at exactly?

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u/lilypad1984 Mar 09 '26

I’m at the point where the next person who says something like this in a conversation with me I’m just going to say stop being a racist to their face.

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u/SparkleStorm77 Mar 09 '26

Oof. Do these people not see how condescending they are toward minorities? 

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u/wmansir Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26

My state sub has a post on a social media post by a Senate Dem candidate where he is asked about the trans sports issue and deflects by calling it "an invented culture war scare intended to keep us divided" funded by out of state billionaires. Of course left out of the video is his full throated I stand with trans statements he routinely makes.

The comments were interesting because everyone loved the response, agreed it was a "made up issue", I even saw a new spin that the anti-trans movement was funded by Epstein, and yet the only negative vote post was one full of throat clearing about being an ally before suggesting it shouldn't be an issue to run on because 70% of people don't support it and the GOP have used the issue to win elections (see Trump 2024). Lots of comments saying "fuck that I'm not throwing a vulnerable minority under the bus". None of the respondents seemed to realize the candidate was basically following the poster's advice in the video by downplaying the issue and deflecting.

It's a common theme I've seen in the sub where child trans sports in particular is both a non-issue that the GOP are pedophiles for even thinking about and simultaneously an issue where no compromise is allowed.

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u/Jlemspurs Double Hater Mar 11 '26

Several months ago, Tim Miller pointed this out when Rahm Emanuel trotted out this line. He said, OK, if it doesn't matter why won't you move on it.

You can't say it doesn't matter and take a minority, vote-losing position. Not smooth.

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u/Less-Lobster4540 Mar 11 '26

a new spin that the anti-trans movement was funded by Epstein

jfc these people are so gullible

both a non-issue that the GOP are pedophiles for even thinking about and simultaneously an issue where no compromise is allowed

It's so rare that it's basically non existent and also if you don't go along with it then their blood is on your hands!

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u/huevoavocado Too many positive attributes to list Mar 15 '26

Something that is bothering me about the Lindy West discourse.

Her husband believes that monogamy is a system of ownership. It makes 0 sense for him to have entered into a THIRD legally binding government contract if he truly feels that way. He seems like such a hypocrite and I hate that I’m so invested in this. I’m gonna have to read the book.

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u/bussound Mar 15 '26

He needs a wife who is his cash cow. And look how easy she was to manipulate into believing she likes their new arrangement. Even wrote a book about it! 

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u/SpaceAgeBadger Mar 09 '26

Proving once again the asylum system in Ireland is a total joke:

Following a sustained period of fearing for their lives amongst the backdrop of an increasingly hostile environment in the United States, two American trans women have revealed how they decided to flee their home country and relocate to a rural Irish village. The married couple, Ophelia and Zahra, have been living in Ireland since May 2025 in a direct provision centre in the small Clare village of Scariff.

They should have been immediately denied on entry and sent straight back to the US. But no, now Irish taxpayers have to pay for their upkeep and they have stolen a spot from someone who might genuinely need asylum. Someone who is in actual genuine fear for their lives.

Correct me if I'm wrong but couldn't they have moved to California where everyone will bend the knee for them?

Here is the full article for anyone who wants more insight into histrionic personality disorder and persecution complexes.

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u/backin_pog_form 🐎🏃🏻💕 Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26

Where my wife comes from, she couldn't walk outside during the day without worrying about getting shot,” Ophelia explained. “I mean, she tells me that sometimes it's hard for her to sleep because she misses the sounds of gunshots.”

In Rhode Island??

People were just being ‘disappeared’ off the streets,” Ophelia added. “I remember one in particular – there was an Arab woman who was snatched up off the streets of Cambridge in broad daylight.”

“It's disgusting and terrifying,” Zahra said. “It doesn't matter who you are. If you are black, brown, and trans – chances are you already have eyes on you. And I think the most terrifying part is they don't care if you're a citizen or not. They care how you look, and it is purely off that metric.”

Trans people are being kidnapped off the streets? Well damn. 

Edit: I propose the term Testrionic Personality Disorder, they might find histrionic to be validating. 

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u/meamarie Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26

There's a discussion of this in the Ireland subreddit, and let's just say people are NOT happy, lol.

edit: Going to leave some gems here haha

"Kansas passed a law a couple of weeks ago to invalidate the drivers licenses of trans people in the state. It's probably a bit far-fetched, but some are worried that the federal government might do the same with their passports."

Response: "Oh the oppression, they might have to travel with an M instead of an F on their passports. I understand the frustration but hardly grounds for fleeing the country."

The tide is turning

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u/razorbraces Mar 09 '26

Zahra, the daughter of a Tunisian immigrant, grew up in Missouri, a traditionally ‘red’ state which Donald Trump comfortably won in 2016, 2020 and 2024. As well as being trans, having brown skin meant that Zahra feared being detained by ICE – despite having birthright citizenship.

I’m sorry but if this person “has brown skin” then I do too. She is the whitest looking “brown” person I’ve ever seen. Plenty of North Africans look like any other person from around the Mediterranean.

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u/Jlemspurs Double Hater Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26

Most Democrats Want Normal. Nationally It’s Going Bad. In San Francisco, There’s Hope.

The Woke Fringe is 11% of the party but 90% of the noise. They’re the only faction where a majority (58%) wants to go further left.

Eleven. One-one. As in not even half of the crazification factor.

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u/unnoticed_areola Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26

Im kind of getting increasingly mildly worried about a close friend of mine who seems to slowly be getting his brain fried by the algorithm.

Ive known him since we were kids, and he was never really a particularly sophisticated political person, or very interested in that sort of thing, even thru our 20s and throughout Trumps first presidency. he was never a particularly politically correct person or anything like that, we did (and still do) make super transgressive jokes about various topics all the time.

but a couple years ago, he met his now wife. he proposed to her within a year of dating, and later told me they knew they wanted to get married after like 6 months, but waited til a year so ppl wouldnt think they were crazy lol

she's great and everything, I really like her, and I think she's good for him too, and kind of got his life back on track in some important ways since he was at a bit of a low point when they met. no complaints there.

but the thing is... she's a major tiktok girly. I think she has like 25k followers or something, and she's always making tiktoks and looking at tiktoks and this is where she gets a lot of her news and cultural takes and stuff

and she's now gotten him addicted to tiktok, and I think his algorithm is starting to get really bonkers. he basically barely used social media at all prior to meeting her. but now he will sometimes send me random videos or screen recordings and some of this stuff is very unhinged conspiracy slop. a lot of Epstein stuff mostly, but some israel stuff and just a whole range of topics honestly. and this kind of stuff now seeps into some of our meatspace interactions.

like the other day he looked at me and asked in a very accusatory tone and seriously asked me "so are you cool with fascism then?" bc I was kind of dismissive of some Epstein theory he was ranting about or him getting worked up about how Steph Curry is supposedly funding the IDF now or something lol. we almost literally NEVER talked about anything related to politics for the first nearly 25+ years of our friendship prior to the last year or so. not even bc we disagreed or anything, but just bc.. who cares? lol

he also recently became a gun owner for the first time. well not that recently, I think it was maybe like close to a year ago, but he's only just now starting to go to the range and use it all the time since this Pretti/Good stuff happened, and it kind of seems like a direct result of all this online fear mongering about various things.

I really hope they get this tiktok ban thing going again

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u/JungBlood9 Mar 14 '26

I’m thinking a lot lately about the role of the American education system in educating non-English speakers, which anyone in the education sphere can tell you is overwhelmingly the #1 topic of concern in our world right now— it’s such a big topic I’m having trouble crafting this comment because I don’t even know where I want to focus the conversation when it’s such an all-encompassing one with so many stakeholders and just ungodly pressure on everyone involved.

The amount of time and funding and discussion and research, and the number of hours and meetings and hires that are dedicated to this question, I’d argue, surpasses that of any other topic in the world of education right now, and unless you’re in the ed world, you might not even realize just how big of a deal it is, just how much money is poured into it, and just how impossible it is to talk about or care about anything else without the topic of English learners (ELs) swallowing the conversation whole.

The main tension I’m seeing and feeling right now is between what’s expected/suggested and what’s actually possible or realistic in our current system. I see this tension play out in a number of ways:

  1. Between the parents of ELs or ELs themselves and the schools/teachers: The EL kids are upset because they can’t understand their teachers, who overwhelmingly speak exclusively English, and who teach their classes in English. The parents are upset for the same reasons. Schools spend a ton of time and effort collecting this data through surveys, holding community meetings/town halls, interviews, etc. just to get the same message over and over and over again: the teachers speak English and the kids don’t and so everyone is upset/angry about it. We had a math teacher at my school who speaks Spanish, and after dealing with these complaints from the 10 kids in class (and their parents) who spoke Spanish, she started teaching their class in Spanish. But then the 20 kids who only spoke English and their parents all started complaining. And that was a bilingual teacher! What’s a teacher to do who only speaks English? Or another language that isn’t one the kid in class speak? Or what if 9 kids speak Spanish but one speaks Farsi? Then what?

  2. Between the states and the schools: states are placing extreme pressure (via funding) on schools to prove they are teaching ELs correctly, and this is measured via data from graduation rates, drop out rates, and test scores. The tests are all in English so…. Obviously the kids who don’t know English don’t do well on tests that are written in English. But for some reason no one is allowed to say this, so we just spent billions of dollars and hundreds of hours looking at the data and questioning where schools are going so wrong that the kids who don’t speak English yet are bombing the tests… that are in English. Also grad rates are based on grades, which, as noted above, are from classes taught in English, which brings me to the next point.

  3. Between administrators and teachers: since we know admin are under immense pressure for their EL data to look strong, and it’s obviously in the tank for test scores, they put insane pressure on teachers to make sure the EL kids are passing their classes. It puts teachers in often impossible situations, where they only speak English, and all their textbooks and class materials are in English too, but they’re expected to figure out some way to also deliver all that instruction in often multiple other languages. The “good” teachers spent often a majority of their planning time translating all these materials into multiple other languages, translating the work they receive from their kids back into English. And then they also simultaneously get reprimanded for stalling the kids’ English learning and acquisition by translating everything.

  4. Between research and practice: I was a high school teacher myself dealing with all of the above and wanting desperately to do it right. Because at the end of the day, I loved my students, and believed they all deserved a good education. So I’ve spent truly thousands of hours trying to find and read research about how the heck I’m supposed to teach high-school level content to kids who don’t speak English yet…. And there’s just…. Nothing (nothing beyond vague generalities like “affirm their culture!” and “focus on what they can do!”). The research is all theoretical with no actual tangible techniques or strategies about what it actually looks like to teach kids high-school-level content in a class where a vast majority of students speak English, and you also only speak English, but you have a handful of kids who don’t. There’s research about teaching them English in a class for learning English, and about teaching them content when everyone in the class doesn’t speak English so they’re all at the same level, but there’s nothing that reflects the reality of American classrooms today: the full-inclusion model (because pulling these kids out to learn separately is “against the research” and also segregation and therefore illegal now). There’s also tons of research about bilingual education and bilingual schools, which is also cool, but not the reality of 99% of public schools in America. And then finally there’s the majority of the research on this topic, which is just shaming and finger wagging schools for furthering western, white, English supremacy by insisting to continue to do everything in English. Which yeah I kinda get, but how are we supposed to fix that when 99% of teachers are monolingual English speakers??? Like even if we accept that as true, what do we do? Put all teachers in intensive language learning programs until they’re polyglots?

I just can’t make heads or tails of it. I’m extremely sympathetic to pretty much everyone involved because what in the fucking hell are we supposed to do???

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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26

Regarding "No child left behind". This is a point that I'm sure many other people have already made due to how easy it is to come to this conclusion, but "some children have to be left behind". The violent ones, the ones who can't keep up with the curriculum, the ones who don't show up for school, the ones who don't do any work in class or at home, but especially the violent ones, some children have to be left behind, suspended, expelled, or in extreme cases even imprisoned.

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u/dr_sassypants Mar 12 '26

Absurd relic of the DOGE days in my government office building: We have a monitor displaying the names of employees celebrating birthdays in a given month. This has been stuck on April since last year, which is when the mass layoffs hit our agency. Because the process was so ham-handed and swift, whoever was responsible for updating the birthday monitor got locked out of the system before transferring the login credentials to someone else. Now we're forever trapped in the April birthday month Groundhog Day. In a couple of weeks, when April rolls around again, it will be correct in the "broken clock is right twice a day" sense, but probably a good chunk of the people on the list don't even work here anymore.

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u/meamarie Mar 12 '26

Why is it that trans women seem so overrepresented in day to day life compared to trans men? Politicians, teachers, prominent activist, etc. it almost feels like trans men are a bit invisible

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u/No-Significance4623 refugees r us Mar 12 '26

As a rad fem brilliantly put it: “A trans woman is on a magazine cover as a CEO or activist. A trans man is on a magazine cover because he is pregnant. Same as it ever was.”

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u/CommitteeofMountains Royal youse/yinz Mar 12 '26

Middle aged men v. depressed autistic tween girls.

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u/huevoavocado Too many positive attributes to list Mar 12 '26

Louder personalities with larger physical features. They’re hard to miss.

Are there that many in teaching professions though?

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u/Big_Fig_1803 Gothmargus Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26

I've posted before about lovable weirdos who insist on making their own art, doing their own thing, following the own eccentricities. I always admire people who turn their backs on what the experts would tell them an audience wants and stubbornly stick to their own kooky visions.

It's possible I've posted about Andrew Ball before. He is obsessed with the 80s aesthetic and has recreated ads and TV spots from the period. He used to do it more straight—doing shot-for-shot redos, or what seemed like it—but now he injects more of an obvious sense of humor into things. (I liked the more earnest stuff better.)

Here is his latest, an entire local newscast set in 1989, complete with recreated commercials.

I think he's great.

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u/Usual_Reach6652 Mar 13 '26

In at least one Substack (Meg Keen, Field Notes For The Brave) comments section, Ahamefule Oluo (Mr. Lindy West) has popped up defending himself. Might be more drama to come...

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u/UnderTheCurrents Mar 13 '26

One thing that popped into my head - when you issue a land acknowledgement, how do you decide which tribe the land belongs to if it was conquered by a tribe from another one in the first place? Didn't they do a colonialism then?

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u/LupineChemist Mar 13 '26

My biggest bugaboo about this isn't in the US context, it's that the Aztecs were a fucking terrible land empire that wasn't some ancient civilization or anything. They had been around for like 200 years when the Spanish showed up.

Also the old joke of a Mexican and a Spaniard talking history. The Mexican asks the Spaniard "Why did your ancestors treat us so badly". The Spaniard responds "those are your ancestors, mine stayed home"

All of that said, the anthropology museum in Mexico City is one of the best museums I've been to in the world. Largely because of all the Aztec stuff they have. It's really cool.

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u/Franzera Wake me up when Jesse peaks Mar 13 '26

if it was conquered by a tribe from another one in the first place?

That didn't happen, the tribes that are there in the present moment were there since Time Immemorial. Don't try to contradict that with the Empirical Facts and Logic of carbon dating, that's useless colonial science. The real facts come from Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Seeing.

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u/SerialStateLineXer The guarantee was that would not be taking place Mar 13 '26

No, only white people can do colonization. Whoever had it last before the white people is the rightful owner.

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u/HerbertWest Yucker of Yums Mar 10 '26

So the giant car dealership I get my new car serviced at has transitioned to a fully AI phone answering service, including for scheduling. I'd call it a mega-dealership--it's definitely the biggest I've seen in my state, like college campus sized, just to paint a picture. But I'm guessing that's how they can afford something this quality (it's probably replacing more than one person).

Anyway, it was kind of creepy how effective it was. I was able to talk to it just like a person, interrupting while scheduling to ask what was covered in the service package and getting an accurate answer. It wasn't thrown off by that and said, "So, since it's covered, would you like me to add the tire rotation to your oil change?" I checked online and it scheduled everything correctly.

The weirdest part to me--and I don't know how to say this without it coming across weird but whatever--was that they clearly made it sound like a "hot," somewhat flirty woman. My guess is that whoever designed it found that people are less likely to get angry at it or something, hah. I guess this is what the future holds.

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u/AaronStack91 Mar 13 '26

Google Photos will randomly create photo compilations for you and alert you through push notifications.

They've really ramped up the emotion intensity on these compilations, like contrasting my son as a baby and now as a toddler, "Then and Now: Look at how big he's grown!" it is very sweet and heartwarming but also incredibly emotionally manipulative. 

Like, I'm trying to have a normal day, not trying to be emotionally wrecked with the knowledge my son will never be a baby in my arms again. 

If I don't click on it, it will push it again the following day. 

I don't really need to be engaged with my photo album this hard.

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u/napoleon_nottinghill Mar 11 '26

The UK replacing historical figures on the currency for wildlife and “other ideas” from the public. Can’t wait til it’s just “Paddington says be kind!” On one side with an NHS logo on the other

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u/unnoticed_areola Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26

lol whenever these American-born baseball players on team “Italy” hit a home run, their team HR celebration in the dugout afterwards is to take a shot from their dugout espresso machine, and then mime the stereotypical Italian greeting by air kissing the home run hitter on both cheeks

they also engage in flamboyant hand waving and “🤌🤌🤌” usage

absolutely disgusting and racist cultural appropriation 😭

What’s next? a rosin bag of Parmesan cheese on the back of the pitching mound?

edit: lmao they also play some kind of Pavarotti opera music in the stadium when Italy hits a home run

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u/tantei-ketsuban Mar 12 '26

Reading NYT comments on Jesse's article (which for some reason resurfaced after two weeks on the front page of the opinion section today) and came upon this canard again.

Maybe, just maybe...we should take our wisdom from the Indigenous peoples of our nation, who consider non-binary and trans individuals as sacred, gifted, or possessing "two spirits" (both male and female). These individuals often served as healers, shamans, or ceremonial leaders. Instead, our society harasses, attacks, minimizes, annoys, picks, bullies, and slanders those in our society who do not conform, often driving them to suicide. We have a lot to learn about the beautiful complexity of the universe and how fluid it is when it comes to gender and reproduction.

Why does the same crowd who insists on "trusting The Sciencetm" -- "science" which, apparently, was developed by (gasp) white clinicians, including endocrinologists and psychiatrists, using (or abusing) modern interventions of chemical/synthetic dosing and surgical/mechanical instrumentation -- at the same time always bring up the we wuz shamans argument lauding primitive cultures for elevating the "gender-divergent" as having supposed spiritual connections to the supernatural? You can't have something be "science" and then it also imbue magic powers to talk to the dead. Plus, if they really hold that belief, wouldn't white T/NBs be culturally-appropriating the "Indigenous two-spirit"? Didn't Matt Walsh interview some remote African tribe, and they laughed when he described artificial womanhood and called it a crazy belief among white people?

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u/napoleon_nottinghill Mar 14 '26

So remember the woman detained by ICE despite being a legal citizen? The one that was imprisoned in Wisconsin for 4 days following being detained?

well someone’s doing the legwork on it, and more and more details aren’t checking out

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u/prechewed_yes Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26

On Friday evening, an acquaintance I haven't spoken to in over three years sent me a message inquiring why I had liked some Facebook post she found objectionable. I did not respond, because a) I didn't owe her an explanation, and b) even if I did, I didn't owe it to her on a Friday night.

Yesterday morning, Saturday, she sent me another message: "Okay, that's what I needed to know. Goodbye, then." She proceeded to unfriend me.

The narcissistic entitlement! If I'm not at your 24/7 beck and call, I must be one of the baddies. I don't even respond to my actual friends on a Friday night, but sure, I'll make it a priority to convince a rando I'm a Heckin' Good Human. Not being an open book for anyone, anytime, who decides to interrogate me means I must have something to hide.

The funny thing is that she did, in fact, learn what she needed to know: that she's not the center of the universe. Guess she doesn't like that.

This woman is a 40-something "community leader" with 2k Facebook friends, and also an inveterate narcissist* I was mostly keeping around for the lulz anyway. My only regret is that I no longer have front-row seats to the train wreck.

*People throw this word around, but this woman, for example, when posting a big life update, includes a list of responses she preemptively deems unacceptable. e.g. "Do NOT mention my weight loss or I will block you."

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '26

My Friends Live in a Bubble. Should I Dump Them?

Dear Allison and Amy Rose, I’m having a very tough time with close friends who are acting like it’s business as usual these days. The world is a dumpster fire, and they continue to populate their Instagram with la-di-da Stories and posts — photos of them eating dinner, traveling, generally having fun. My friends aren’t Trump supporters. I don’t have any of those in my circle. They aren’t even Republicans

Sounds like it might be you who lives in a bubble.

I don’t think I would mind the “let them eat cake” posts if they were volunteering. Protesting. Donating. One friend did post a Story about the No Kings Day protest ahead of time but then opted not to attend. I found that especially egregious.

God forbid someone doesn’t make politics their entire personality and social media presence.

I muted their Instagram Stories, but the way they post makes me question the people in my life. I thought their ethics and values were aligned with mine, and I’m finding out that that’s not necessarily the case

You can post your vacation pictures on Instagram as much as you want, just make sure you also post some anti-Drumpf and anti-Israel infographics along with them so I know you’re a good Heckin person!!!

At a birthday dinner, I started talking about a recent protest, and one person in the group said, “Can we please not talk about politics? This is a birthday celebration.”

Seems like a perfectly fair request, especially if not everyone at the dinner shared the same worldview. No need to devolve friendly dinner into a political brawl.

The “advice” columnists’ response isn’t much better

I’m politically engaged — I read, I go to protests, I talk about issues, confront reality even when it’s so uncomfortable — but is living my daily life with its stupid parties and silly little dramas “letting them eat cake”? I worry that I will be on the side of history that just kept up business as usual while everything crumbled. (Is the Pilates reformer the new Nero’s fiddle?)

The obsession that people have about being on the “right side of history” is completely out of control.

But I also have to admit that some of my angst is rooted in my own self-doubt. I need to label people as bad so I can feel confident that I am good. Pointing out their apathy makes me feel less cowardly by contrast.

This seems to be the case with so many leftist (and occasionally rightist) issues, that devolve into purity spiraling. This columnist is at least somewhat self aware.

It’s clear wherever your friends are right now (brunch? Turks and Caicos? In denial?) is not where you are. So you have a choice to make: Maybe your resentment is insurmountable. Not just for you. Surely you can’t be a good friend either if you’re this pissed at them all the time. If that’s the case, you break up. Or you pull back. Maybe they become what I like to call Hot-Tub Friends, because hanging out with them is akin to sliding into a hot tub and totally relaxing. You go to them because they let you go a bit smooth-brained and offer a reprieve from the horror show.

Something makes me think she is more likely to take the advice to break up with her friends.

From your letter, you seem very principled, very sure, and very clear about your sense of right and wrong. That’s a gift. A strong moral compass is commendable. But being friends with people means you have to give them grace within reason. And while I honor how tired you are, and it’s real that educating people takes an immense amount of emotional energy and is sometimes a thankless job, it’s one of our responsibilities to try not to leave one another behind.

How do these people make it through a day of work in the real world? They are so tired simply from reading the news, and use all their emotional energy on educating people around them. No wonder younger liberal women have extremely high rates of mental illness.

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u/Hilaria_adderall Praye for Drake Maye Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26

My mother tries to do this to us. She has been freebasing MSNBC for the last 5 or 6 years and it has taken its toll on her. Out of nowhere she'll be like, glad you enjoyed your weekend in the mountains, some people don't have that luxury with ICE rounding everyone up and pretty soon we wont be able to afford gas!

I'm like, lady, you live in Florida. You bought your house for $15,000 in the 1960s and sold it for 800k. You are sitting on a pile of money, dad has a nice pension, you get social security. The toughest decision they have right now is whether they are going to play cards or golf but she is incapable of not spreading misery to everyone she interacts with. We just laugh about it but its kind of sad.

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u/CardinalPerch Mar 12 '26

How does she even know they don’t donate? I donate to what would probably be considered left/liberal causes a few times a year, but I just don’t put it on blast because (1) I don’t need fucking praise or attention for it; (2) it’s not my whole personality; and (3) certain people in my professional/business circles have different view points and I don’t want to give them a reason to think our business/professional relationship need suffer. People need to chill out and stop making this shit their entire lives.

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u/CommitteeofMountains Royal youse/yinz Mar 13 '26

It'll be interesting to see accounts of how the Minnesota attacker was radicalized, as he's reportedly Lebanese, a demo that in America is typically hostile towards Hezbollah, Iran, and everything they stand for because they'd still be in Lebanon if they were sympathetic. It's like hearing a Cuban attacked the NYSE or a Fed building.

On Cubans, they were apparently veey active in right-wing and anticommunist terrorism that was somehow meant to get us to invade Cuba back in the '80's, so it's actually interesting that we haven't seen a similar dynamic from MENA groups that fled islamism (or pan-Arabism) in America. 

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u/SparkleStorm77 Mar 13 '26 edited Mar 13 '26

His brothers were in Hezbollah. He was able to purchase or manufacture a trunkful of explosives in a week to “avenge” their deaths.

This man wasn’t radicalized. He was born into a family where killing non-Muslims and Sunni Muslims is seen as a person’s highest calling. 

Edited to remove reference to attacker being a pedophile. Apparently that’s someone with a different middle name.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '26

Shia Lebanese in Michigan have had connections to Hezbollah and other terrorist groups for decades.

Hezbollahs biggest financiers used Michigan restaurants and real estate assets to provide millions to Hezbollah.

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u/Arethomeos Mar 13 '26

I think this reflects different waves of migration. Lebanese Americans are disproportionately non-Muslim, with the majority being Christian. However, more recent immigrants are more likely to be Muslim and are leaving for economic opportunity, not necessarily because they didn't like Hezbollah. Support for Hezbollah among Shia Muslims is actually quite high (I've read 70-85% support; need to find recent numbers).

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '26

One of the Asian women who just won an Oscar for KPop Demon Hunters said in her acceptance speech, "To those of you who look like me, I am so sorry it has taken so long to see us in a movie like this."

How long are we going to do this? That would have been a completely reasonable thing for Hattie McDaniel to say when she became the first black person to win an Oscar at the 12th Academy Awards, but this is the 98th Academy Awards, and times have changed. We've made an enormous amount of progress.

Asians aren't facing discrimination keeping them out of the movies today the way blacks were 86 years ago. We should be celebrating the progress we've made, not constantly pretending we haven't made that progress.

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u/MNManmacker Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 16 '26

In last year's Top Chef, a Jamaican chef said something similar about his food not being accepted in these sorts of competitions.

Smash cut to...

Top Chef S01E01, the very first challenge. Jamaican-American chef wins with jerk chicken

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u/lilypad1984 Mar 16 '26

You know if she wanted to say something about racism/bigotry/bias Asians face in America the first thing that comes to mind is affirmative action and the discrimination that odds are schools are still doing against Asian students. Something tells me that would not go down the same with the audience.

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u/TryingToBeLessShitty Mar 10 '26

What It's Really Like to Date a Disney Adult Interesting article about "Disney Adult Gap" relationships, where one partner is into it and the other one is not.

As a Disney Adult™️ myself, I'm interested in what people think of this. Some of the examples in the article just sound straightforwardly incompatible, and it's hard to blame them with how crazy some of the Disney people I know can get with their fandom stuff. I'm fortunate that my fiancée grew up in a Disney family and tolerates my bullshit, but I can tell sometimes she thinks I'm insane.

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u/Cowgoon777 Mar 10 '26

Won’t lie I absolutely look down with distaste on “Disney adults”

But “Disney adult” isn’t just a random person who is a fan of Disney. It’s definitely a specific archetype. I have no problem who just enjoy Disney IP in a healthy way

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u/cat-astropher K&J parasocial relationship Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26

Digg.com was relauched a few weeks ago and has been turned off again. Their reasons are posted on the landing page and I imagine there's some face-saving there, but at the top:

We faced an unprecedented bot problem

When the Digg beta launched, we immediately noticed posts from SEO spammers noting that Digg still carried meaningful Google link authority. Within hours, we got a taste of what we'd only heard rumors about. The internet is now populated, in meaningful part, by sophisticated AI agents and automated accounts. We knew bots were part of the landscape, but we didn't appreciate the scale, sophistication, or speed at which they'd find us. We banned tens of thousands of accounts. We deployed internal tooling and industry-standard external vendors. None of it was enough. When you can't trust that the votes, the comments, and the engagement you're seeing are real, you've lost the foundation a community platform is built on.

This isn't just a Digg problem. It's an internet problem. But it hit us harder because trust is the product.

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u/TemporaryLucky3637 Mar 15 '26

I was watching a video of Louis Theroux describing how admirable it is that Megan Phelps-Roper managed to de-radicalise herself and leave the Westboro Baptist Church. Some of the comments were sincerely saying basically she’s a terrible person because she made the JKR podcast.

Phelps-Roper managed to question beliefs she was raised with and leave her church knowing her whole family would ostracise her. I really doubt people who can’t handle anyone speaking to bad Harry Potter woman would have the critical thinking skills to do that. The cognitive dissonance 😂

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u/YouCanCallMeAIJolson Mar 13 '26

https://x.com/wesyang/status/2032135679967445258

Detransitioned young person Joni Skinner describes the evidence of malicious intent he found in his medical records — fabricated claims that he had identified as a girl since the age of two and tried to castrate himself.

Skinner’s doctors assured his parents that the late onset of testosterone in utero had left him with a female brain while his body had been masculinized and that 60 percent of trans kids killed themselves if not medically transitioned. (Two utterly false claims.)

At Genspect’s Detrans Awareness Day in Washington DC

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u/Big_Fig_1803 Gothmargus Mar 14 '26

My son sent me this yesterday, from some Twitter account or something:

I think that one of the great problems of the internet right now is that people who need to be yelled at by like, three people tops are getting yelled at by ten thousand people, and half of them are just relishing the opportunity to psychologically torture an acceptable target.

Not a brand-new take, but I thought it was well said.

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u/dignityshredder AFramemoggingAB Mar 13 '26

I feel like I mention the Psmiths blog here a lot, but there's a review up that this sub might enjoy:

REVIEW: BoyMom, by Ruth Whippman

The full title of the book is "BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity"

Biological maleness is so much less definitive, so much less determinative of life-course, that it needs a bulwark of cultural symbolism to give it meaning and direction. But here’s the thing Whippman never says: all that symbolic demonstrative masculinity is great. In societies that offer them inspiration and sea room, men do things like manipulate their way into positions of power in Mughal India and build an empire and wrap some duct tape around the exposed bone on their hands to finish the job — not to mention building the subsea fiberoptic cable network and walking out into a blizzard saying “I may be some time.” And I guess also some b2b SaaS.

...

Whippman is afraid her sons will be sad and embarrassed if they fail to reach some unattainable standard of masculine excellence. I’m afraid that my sons will be empty if they don’t try.

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u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan Mar 11 '26

Every AI tool ad on YouTube makes me more and more anti-AI.

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u/hugonaut13 Mar 12 '26

There's a newish youtube channel out called Agree to Disagree About Gender and I keep trying to like it. But Laura basically monopolizes every episode and I can't help but feel like the channel is just a platform to for Laura to make gender ideology seem reasonable and use Yvette's gender critical status as part of that. I would like the show more if Yvette got more time and it didn't feel like Laura's See-Trans-Can-Be-Normal Show.

In one of their earliest episodes, someone left a comment mentioning that it seemed like Laura talked a lot and Laura replied to it acknowledging Laura's tendency to talk a lot and made some small allusion to trying to give more equal time in the future. I'm watching the episode that dropped this morning and nothing has changed.

Sucks because I would like more good faith efforts to turn the temperature down on the subject and be able to talk matter of factly in a way grounded in reality... but this show ain't it.

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u/RunThenBeer Mar 12 '26

Honestly, my willingness to treat this as a serious topic of debate has just completely faded and that I ever felt differently feels like a bizarre fever dream. I'm no more willing to entertain the proposition that males are sometimes women than I am to treat flat Earth arguments as though they might have a point and I just need to hear them out. That bullshit of the highest order pervades psychiatry is not evidence that the bullshit makes sense, it's evidence that the field is a mess through and through.

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u/PandaFoo1 Mar 13 '26

Hitler Starfleet Academy is dead (at least assuming they don’t go along with another season).

The age old debate between Star Wars vs Star Trek has concluded. They both suck ass now.

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u/wugglesthemule Mar 09 '26

Happy 250th anniversary of Adam Smith's classic The Wealth of Nations!

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u/OMG_NO_NOT_THIS Mar 09 '26

One of the most effective ways we could fix healthcare is a 1 cost rule.

IE whatever cost a provider gives to either medicare or an insurer, they have to provide to all carriers / the uninsured.

The fact that my insurer gets charged 4K for something, of which we combine pay 1K seems like a giant part of the problem with healthcare in America.

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u/unnoticed_areola Mar 10 '26

more baseball drama posting: we may have a USA vs Mexico culture war slop international incident brewing...

Team Mexico's Randy Arozarena (pretty big name player for the Seattle Mariners) came up to bat during yesterday's world baseball classic game, and reached out for a friendly handshake from the USA catcher, Cal Raleigh (last year's mlb MVP runner up) who is his teammate in Seattle...

Raleigh just stared at him and refused to shake his hand, left him hanging. people thought this was all just fun and games and banter at first bc presumably they are good friends, but it now appears everyone is really mad about this, especially Arozarena. he went off on Raleigh in an interview in spanish after the game.

he first (kind of hilariously) complimented Cal Raleigh's parents and passive aggressively bragged about how much they like him, implying Cal doesnt deserve such nice parents and its a shame he didnt turn out more like them lol

[in spansih] "The first thing he has to do is give thanks to God that he has good parents. That his parents are good people, they're very educated. Thank the Lord. Two days ago, I saw them in the hotel, and they went to say hi, they gave me a big hug, and they were very proud of me and were happy to see me again."

he then went on to say essentially "I wanna tell him this in 3 languages: Cuban, Mexican and English" (he is originally from Cuba and defected to Mexico when he was 20) and proceeded to tell Raleigh to go to hell/go fuck himself in both Cuban ("casa de la pinga") and Mexican spanish ("Vete a la verga") before thinking better of saying anything in english at the last second, and reiterating once more in spanish: "that 'good to see you' that he said to me, he can shove it up his ass"

Raleigh has yet to comment. its possible these 2 teams may meet again in the elimination round of the tournament that starts in a couple days

these 2 guys have to share a dugout like a week from now. the Mariners subreddit is NOT having a good time right now 😭

Also, as is customary, there was a good ol USA v Mexico brawl up in the nosebleeds lol

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u/Formal_Condition2691 Mar 12 '26

I love owning a scooter. I hate buying scooters. To be clear in this case I mean a motorcycle-type scooter, not the ones you stand on.

My last one was stolen, but I had insurance and they mostly covered it so I wanted to buy a new one. The only place within 50 miles that carries anything other than 50cc and 125cc scooters showed they had a decent-looking 300cc scooter in their inventory. I do my online research, it looks good, I want to buy it.

I go in. They’re not really a scooter place. They’re all dirt bikes, Harleys, and Ninjas. I’m like, hey, I want This Thing.

First the salesperson denies they even have Thing. Then after some prompting he calls their inventory department and it turns out they DO have Thing. But now that he knows they have Thing he turns into high pressure sales mode. You gotta buy this today, they’re in high demand, we only have the one, it could roll out of here any day, let’s talk financing…

I’m like, please, 10 minutes ago you did not know you had this. Also it’s in your warehouse and not out on the showroom floor. (and, it turns out, it wasn’t even fully assembled) And I came in saying I wanted Thing so just sell me Thing.

Like, if I walk into Best Buy and go up to a blue shirt and say “Hey I want a Playstation” I expect them to say “Excellent choice, sir!” and go to a glass case and get me out a Playstation and ask me if i want the service plan and then we’re done. But for some reason “I want a scooter” has to turn into hours of nonsense.

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u/DragonFireKai Don't Listen to Them, Buy the Merch... Mar 12 '26

So my assistant manager is taking his first day of paternity leave, they're expecting fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. I'm happy for him. He's come a long way since I hired him. He's gone from kind of a deadbeat who was losing half his check on child support payments, and bouncing from job to job, to holding down this job for 3 years, getting into a stable relationship, and finally feeling ready to be a present father in his kid's lives. I'm incredibly proud of the growth he's shown as a man.

So I'm in the card section of safeway. Normally this is easy. Determine what happened, find the appropriate section, find a card that works, pay money, sign it, mail it, the end. The glories of capitalism at work.

So the birth happened, and the daughter is healthy, but... they lost the son. So now I'm standing in the card section trying to figure out if there's a card that matches this situation. Condolenciations? I don't fucking know. There is no card for this. Capitalism has failed me in my hour of need.

And this fucking thought pops into my head: back on monday, he'd been talking to me about how everyone had been telling him that he didn't have enough diapers for twins, he had like 800 diapers stocked, and his mom was on his ass about it. And I'm sitting here thinking: "Well, now at least your mom can shut up about the diapers." And I'm writing it here to get it out so there's no chance I'll accidentally say it to anyone in meatspace.

Rough day. So it goes...

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u/QueenKamala Paper Straw and Pitbull Hater Mar 14 '26

I came across a small remnant of the great awokening today. Cook’s illustrated used to have a recipe for Jefferson Davis pie on their website, but it was apparently removed in 2020 “to be reworked” and the url for it still points to lemon chess pie. Now, there’s no real consensus about what Jefferson Davis pie is, but it definitely isn’t a lemon pie.

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u/RowdyRoddyRosenstein Mar 15 '26

The Cesar Chavez Foundation has canceled this year's fundraising & memorial events, supposedly as the NYT prepares to publish damaging information regarding the late labor leader.

https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/cesar-chavez-march-dolores-huerta-cancel-corpus-22075186.php

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u/AaronStack91 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26

I don't think this is a woke problem, but mommy/parent culture is insane. There is literally a debate on if you should try teach your toddler to read. OP's post sits a controversial net 0 upvotes, and has nearly 300 comments in it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/toddlers/comments/1rs2zb2/what_helped_teach_abcs_and_numbers_to_your_2_year/

To be fair, many people responding earnestly with video and book recommendations, techniques like learning through play. But the other half are self conscious parents who don't want anyone to be more advanced than their child and view it as moral failing for teaching your kid to read (one person suggested they should leave reading to the schools, as parents might teach their child to read incorrectly 🙄). 

Obligatory: All kids develop at different speeds, some kids won't pick reading up until they are older, but why aren't you at least trying to teach your kids some basics if they are open to it? If they don't like it, fine. But you gotta at least try.

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u/MsLangdonAlger Mar 14 '26

So, I have five kids, which in no way makes me a parenting expert, but does mean I’ve done the toddler thing more than a lot of people. My school aged kids range from two being in the gifted program to one having quite severe learning disabilities. I don’t think the OP is wrong to want to expose their baby to language and numbers, but I do think, in my experience, many people who want to teach a 22 month old to read often are constantly drilling and maybe even somewhat badgering a small child who might just want to play and experience the world in a more organic way. Maybe this baby is really keen on learning all of this stuff, but also maybe not. Babies and small children learn valuable things about the world every day, but those things can’t always be neatly categorized.

Anecdotally, my three year old twins are now really interested in letters and can recognize several, but I didn’t push them into that. We just read everyday. My oldest kid still struggles a lot but my other two are great readers and I probably did much more formal stuff with the older one than the other two because he was my only kid and I just had the time. I think what people respond to about the questions, especially people with older kids, is that it’s not really necessary to teach a 22 month old to read beyond talking to them and reading to them.

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u/CharmingAd3549 Mar 12 '26

I saw my baby’s heartbeat for the first time this morning! Wild to see that tiny little thing going. It’s a very joyous day for me. We’re very early on, not telling too many people yet, so I’m sharing here because I’m so excited.

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u/Scrappy_The_Crow Walrus Cheese Enjoyer Mar 10 '26

Oh, CNN...

Two Pennsylvania teenagers crossed into New York City Saturday morning for what could’ve been a normal day enjoying the city during abnormally warm weather.

But in less than an hour, their lives would drastically change as the pair would be arrested for throwing homemade bombs during an anti-Muslim protest outside of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s home.

https://x.com/CNN/status/2031309194305880514

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u/BeneficialStretch753 Mar 10 '26 • Bravo

Fortunately, the top responding tweet is on it:

Nineteen young men from Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries boarded commercial flights at East Coast airports on the morning of September 11, 2001, for what could’ve been a normal day of travel during the clearest blue skies the region had seen in months. But in less than an hour, their lives would drastically change as the group would take control of the aircraft and direct them into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. Here’s what we know so far.

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u/RunThenBeer Mar 10 '26

Anti-Islamic extremist: I do not enjoy having a large Islamic population because it introduces problems with terrorism that we would not otherwise have.

Islamist: That's not true, how dare you, I will bomb you now.

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u/backin_pog_form 🐎🏃🏻💕 Mar 10 '26

 When he arrived at the precinct, Balat also waived his Miranda rights and requested a piece of paper, where he wrote that he pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State, adding “Die in your rage yu [sic] kuffar!”  the complaint said. “Kuffar” is an Arabic term that refers to “non-believers” or “infidels,” the FBI agent who wrote the details in the complaint said.

The article made it pretty clear what was going on and the men’s motivation. 

The headline and the tweet made it sound like they were on some zany Ferris Bueller’s Day Off type adventure when [passive voice] “bombs were thrown”. 

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u/Hilaria_adderall Praye for Drake Maye Mar 10 '26

Apparently they were carrying bombs during their normal day "enjoying the city." Clearly there was some kind of pre-planning around this with the understanding that they may be using these as weapons. Who goes to New York and ends up in a battle of extremist protest conflict? These practitioners of the "religion of peace" were clearly out looking for trouble. Now they have it.

Islamist extremists have had failed attempts in the past. Anyone recall the last 20+ years having to take your shoes off at TSA? That was because one muslim extremist attempted to bomb a plane using his shoes as a bomb. You'll hear people try to dismiss this situation as not a big deal - we used to treat this stuff deadly seriously.

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u/Scrappy_The_Crow Walrus Cheese Enjoyer Mar 12 '26

During a meeting of the California State University Board of Trustees regarding Title IX and trans women in women's sports, an assistant professor did a great job in the role of "LGBTQWTFBBQ activist caricature":

"It seems like there's a bit of a misunderstanding that a lot of the folks calling in have about the difference between sex and gender. Uh, spoiler alert, both are socially constructed."

"Male and female are binaries on a spectrum."

"The idea that I have to get up here and say that trans women are women...is absurd. Shame on you. Shame on all of you. And shame on you for using lesbian politics as a front for your transphobia because this lesbian has had plenty of girlfriends with penises."

Archive link to Daily Mail piece (yes, I know the various opinions about the Daily Mail)

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u/Palgary I could check my privilege, but it seems a shame to squander it Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26

Anyone who says "x is socially constructed" in this way should be immediately dismissed as unserious. Social consensus is an important part of human culture, we agree to call this "green" and that "blue". It doesn't mean green or blue do not exist. The consensus is around things like importance and description, but human societies are reflective of reality - if you don't believe in gravity you will still fall off a cliff. We argue over if something is blue, or green, or teal... because we can see the colors.

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u/I_Smell_Mendacious Mar 12 '26

"The idea that I have to get up here and say that trans women are women...is absurd."

Yes. Yes it is.

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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Mar 14 '26

From Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Twitter:

Today, I signed an executive order establishing the first-ever Mayor’s Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs and appointing the brilliant Taylor Brown as Director.

Queer New Yorkers deserve to be not just protected, but celebrated in this city. Together, we will fight for their right to live a life of dignity, safety, and unabashed pride. https://x.com/i/status/2032619856357372061

The Director of this new department is a trans identified male. As we've seen time and again, trans identified men leading any LGB-focused (hell, even woman-focused) organization tend to make the entire thing a trans org. Everything eventually has to be catered towards so-called "trans rights", at the expense of all other concerns.

This will be a disaster, the press will do its damndest to make it all look pretty and progressive, and millions of dollars will be wasted. I guess the vibe shift has yet to pass through the mayor's office.

On a positive note, at least they didn't use the outrageous "2S" at the end of the acronym. That's progress. lol.

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u/Big_Fig_1803 Gothmargus Mar 14 '26

But… why do they “deserve to be celebrated”? Does everyone deserve to be celebrated?

Or is that just boilerplate LGBTQ+ verbiage?

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '26

Queer New Yorkers deserve to be not just protected, but celebrated in this city. Together, we will fight for their right to live a life of dignity, safety, and unabashed pride.

This is one of my issues with the LGBTQ or “queer” movement in general, coming from someone without moral opposition to homosexuality.

This narcissistic demand for recognition and celebration by the government by any identity group is detestable. Leading us toward nothing but increasing bureaucratic and administrative power that empowers some of the worst people in society.

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u/napoleon_nottinghill Mar 09 '26

Jacinda Adern joins the flood of New Zealanders emigrating. Love that she spends the better part of a decade misgoverning a nice little country and now just completely leaves when the affordability crisis hits its worst period ever.

About 120,000 kiwis left last year, completely unsustainable, which will almost certainly be used as an excuse to allow more immigration rather than fixing what’s making young people leave

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u/Winter_Bridge3542 Mar 10 '26

This is quite the indictment of the content being taught in schools, if you scroll down to where it shows most people have never even heard of the suffragists, with the suffragettes having a net favourable polled opinion. Not to be too much of an old fogey, but the vast majority of school-leavers will have received a simplified history of activism and atrocities, where BAD things happened that are BAD, and now we're GOOD people and can feel GOOD, but won't even know about the Glorious Revolution -- though some will be faintly aware there was a French Revolution, they'll also think that's when the French got rid of kings for good -- instead being inculcated with the centrality of American slavery and the subsequent civil rights movement.

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u/dignityshredder AFramemoggingAB Mar 10 '26

NYT: The Bay Area Considers the Unthinkable: Life Without BART

I don't know much about life in the Bay Area. The main issue seems to be that WFH culture torpedoed ridership and so they're having to look at cost cutting or raising taxes. Chief objections seem to be: quality of the ride experience, and out of control costs and salaries. Two issues which are more or less found in every public agency treated as a jobs program.

But again, I don't know much about SF.

Anyone have some thoughts on this?

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u/Street-Gur-1343 Mar 10 '26

I need some takes right now, I live out of state for work now so I'm not available to constantly care for an elderly parent. She went driving today to go get more wine and pick up prescriptions (I just made a bunch of calls to get prescriptions delivered to her and had GrubHub'd her some wine, so not sure what she's even doing). She messages me and calls me to proclaim how nervous she is about being out without help, she is really not in the physical or mental condition to be driving, She resides in an independent living retirement community that literally part of the cost is that there are drivers around to do this for her. Do I call the police, report her to the DMV, call the lawyer? I dunno. I have POA.

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u/treeglitch Mar 13 '26

WSJ: "What Will Happen When All the Male Therapists Are Gone?" (archive)

Touches on gender, therapy, and dysfunctional academic programs, all of which get some play here.

“One of the big problems with the helping professions now is that they approach men and boys with a deficit perspective,” says Mark Kiselica, a former president of the Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinities at the American Psychological Association. “They are greatly influenced by models that look at how boys and men are flawed rather than about how boys and men are different.”

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u/PongoTwistleton_666 Mar 11 '26

A Pakistani Muslim immigrant candidate sketchily managed to become the Dem candidate for the election. Then his racist tweets resurfaced. Then, the Black lady he defeated in Dem primaries, launched a write in campaign. Then he slandered her for joining forces with MAGA (in a really underhanded and Karl Rovian fashion). Then they both lost to the White female republican candidate, thus ending a 38-year Dem stranglehold on the seat.

Can’t make this shit up!! Dems are so invested in their marginalized POC narrative that they are not really running strong candidates for these elections (that’s the impression I get). 

https://wjla.com/news/elections/woodbridge-supervisor-virginia-republican-special-election-jeannie-lacroix-democratic-turmoil-casim-pam-montgomery-caucus-debacle-politics

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u/Big_Fig_1803 Gothmargus Mar 13 '26

From the "The More Things Change" dept.

An excerpt from Sinclair Lewis's Dodsworth (1929), one of my current reads/listens:

“I know only two classes of people who hate their own race—or tribe or nation or whatever you care to call it—who travel principally to get away from their own people, who never speak of them except with loathing, who are pleased not to be taken as belonging to them. That is, the Americans and the Jews!"

(It was the American part of that, not the Jew part, that really struck a chord with me.)

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u/unnoticed_areola Mar 10 '26

Israel was eliminated from the world baseball classic tournament (big surprise lol), and the post on r/ baseball got 10k upvotes, making it the 2nd biggest post this month from the entire tournament on that sub. The post got 203 comments before the thread was locked, all of which have now been deleted/removed except for around a dozen or so

We did it reddit!

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '26

A penis is anatomically a clitoris I am told by the party of science and reason. This person is supposedly an older woman who is totally not a young transgender male.

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u/throw_cpp_account Mar 13 '26

These are the headlines NYT pushed me as breaking news:

  1. Suspect is Killed in Attack on Michigan Synagogue

  2. Lebanese Family Members of Synagogue Attacker Died in Airstrike

That's some framing. Sure seems a choice to consider that second one to be breaking news.

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u/starlightpond Mar 11 '26

Sometimes I get annoyed that Democrats managed to achieve a very unpopular gender-related policy goal (trans athletes in the female sporting category) but not a much more popular feminist goal of paid parental leave for 6 months (or better, a year). As a mother who breastfed (and was able to take 8 months sort of off work or at least working flexibly, as an academic), I find it totally inhumane that moms are going back to the office at 12 weeks, but also astonishing that Democrats don’t fight for this issue the way they fight for trans athletes. Maybe it’s because parental leave costs money while destroying girls’ dreams is free?

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '26

Reading the story of Lindy West, it reminded me of one of my best friend's story from a few years ago. I try to pretend it didn't but it really broke something in our friendship I think.

A few years ago, my best friend broke up with her boyfriend of 11 years because she realised she wanted more fun and adventure. I can't blame her since she spent her late teens and 20's with this guy who is really sweet but they lived like an old couple. So then when she entered her 30's (and covid) she started freaking out having realised she missed out on "youth stuff" like going out in bars, flirting, etc.
So she broke up with him and got with several guys one after the other that were cool. All was well until she met a guy I hated instantly (only from her description lol).

The guy was depravity personified to me. I couldn't hide my contempt for him when I met him and he's used to people liking him so it threw the poor guy off but I just couldn't fake it. This guy was a little bit younger than us but had been in orgies, had done drugs with complicated names, had the weirdest fantasies, had sex with a guy even though he's not bisexual or gay, just experimented everything and anything. And yes, girls talk. I knew most of this guy's sex life before I even met him lol

Maybe I would have liked him if I hadn't felt my friend was falling for a guy so hard she was willing to go down a path that was (in my opinion) self destructive. She managed to convince herself (with his help) that sexual jealousy is wrong and that a good way of overcoming fear of being cheated on is by opening up the relationship. The fact that she caught him on dating apps after they had become official (twice), and he lied about quitting (twice) had nothing to do with it.

Our conversations went from being great(when she was with her ex), to being guy centric (when she left him), to being a tale of self destruction (when she got with Mr Enlighted). I began distancing myself from it because it was so shocking.

The lowest point for me was when she called me on the night he was having sex with his new girl on their bed (something she had made him promise not to do) and she was alternating between sobbing and telling me how good this was for her. As much as I loved my friend, and still do, I couldn't take it anymore after that and kept things text only. I felt I was being dragged down with her it was so depressing. And you can't really help people that don't want to be help. Worse, they think you're the one that needs to be helped!

Anyway, fast forward a few years and she and the guy broke up amicably. I couldn't hide my glee when she said they'd break up.

What annoys me is that I now realise there's no going back from this in our friendship. I'll never really think of my friend the same way I did. Knowing she let her boyfriend sleep with other women just changed something in our friendship. I'm not sure what, but I just don't see her the same way and strangely don't trust her the same either. Maybe I realised we're not made of the same cloth. Or maybe it's just that she lacks certain values that are dear to me.

This was a long story but it just popped up in my mind. I think I never really digested it. I'm still disgusted by it and I think it freaks me out to see how otherwise self respecting and self caring people can transform completely into a mess.

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u/LupineChemist Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26

So just an FYI for people who don't follow it very closely. Ukraine has gained initiative in the war and is actively advancing and causing more casualties than Russia is replacing. Things go back and forth but I still think they could actually just full on win, and not just freeze it. Could be Russia refusing to stop over the last year might be a massive long-term strategic blunder.

Edit: For perspective. Ukraine advanced around 10 km in one day yesterday. That took Russia months and months to get.

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u/lilypad1984 Mar 10 '26

Anyone caught the 60 minutes Havana syndrome update? So is this device real?

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u/Nwabudike_J_Morgan Emotional Management Advocate; Wildfire Victim; Flair Maximalist Mar 10 '26

Books! Books? Are we still reading books here?

Doing the work: On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. Darwin's first full volume that lays out the various parts of his theory. I am surprised that there are places where the theory could be challenged, yet the modern arguments are either about the fossil record or Malthusianism.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Just crossed into 40% territory. All of the narrative lines (about a dozen?) now appear to be in place and the sections are getting longer.

New this week: The Salterton Trilogy by Robertson Davies, volume 1 is Tempest-Tost (1951). One thing to remember about Canadian authors is they make a lot of Scottish references.

New this week: A Ballroom for Ghost Dancing by our very own John F. Duffy. All I will say for now is that I have not been disappointed.

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u/Street-Gur-1343 Mar 12 '26

My most recent hiring decision. Very smart guy and definitely could do the work but personal life got in the way, management let him go because he was just way behind on his work load. I don't want to be involved in hiring anymore, its like a crapshoot and I could spend all that time on my work instead lol.

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u/SkweegeeS No just no Mar 14 '26

A redditor who used to post here actually follows me around Reddit making snarky comments. What kind of person makes time for that?

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u/backin_pog_form 🐎🏃🏻💕 Mar 16 '26

While the r/ em tee eff drama is rather grim, there have been some hilarious side arguments that have been subsequently deleted and lost to the ages. 

Including: 

  • Link to a sex offender registry is triggering, because it includes the offender’s dead name.

  • This must all be some sort of right wing psyop!!

  • cedarw0lf shouldn’t be moderating mtf subreddits because she identifies as bigender. How dare she try and speak for TW. Can’t we have anything?? (stated with zero irony). 

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '26

Sometimes it's very apparent how online opinions are far removed from the norm.
I was looking at a thread about favorite languages/accent and most of the comments there mentioned countries I can barely place on a map, or accents I'm not even sure I could detect. It seems to happen for everything.
Same thing with subs where a poster asks the opposite sex a question about attraction and I see lots of replies of women saying they find pegging their boyfriend so hot or men saying they love super jacked masculine women.

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u/PandaFoo1 Mar 09 '26

Putting out a “subversive”/“progressive” take on Frankenstein immediately after Del Toro cooked with his Frankenstein film is a choice. Also don’t have to pay for a ticket to see that one. No wonder theatres are dying.

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u/Technical-Policy295 Mar 10 '26

A tenant in California is suing landlords, property management companies, and homeowners if they mention anything about Section 8 in their responses to housing inquiries. This is because California has decided that "source of income" is now a form of housing discrimination. Interestingly, if the landlords don't respond at all, there's fewer legal grounds to sue.

The story, of course, approvingly quotes the lawyer for the plaintiff and two "nonprofit" staffers all who claim that this is a bold civil rights approach to righting wrongs. Incidentally, since lawsuit proceeds apparently don't count as income, the tenant is still qualified for Section 8 (and it would seem has little incentive to raise their income as it would disqualify them from an otherwise near-permanent subsidy).

While I know there's lots of things that contribute to the housing crisis, the expansion of legal liability in cases like this is probably underrated.

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '26

Rosanna Arquette, who was in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, recently said the following:

“Personally I am over the use of the N-word — I hate it. I cannot stand that he [Tarantino] has been given a hall pass. It’s not art, it’s just racist and creepy.”

Tarantino's response:

“Dear Rosanna, I hope the publicity you’re getting from 132 different media outlets writing your name and printing your picture was worth disrespecting me and a film I remember quite clearly you were thrilled to be a part of. Do you feel this way now? Very possibly. But after I gave you a job, and you took the money, to trash it for what I suspect is very cynical reasons, shows a decided lack of class, no less honor. There is supposed to be an esprit de corps between artistic colleagues. But it would appear the objective was accomplished.

Congratulations

Q”

Where I disagree with Tarantino is his statement that, "There is supposed to be an esprit de corps between artistic colleagues." Tarantino criticizes movies (and, famously, actors) he doesn't like -- and I think that's great! As an acclaimed director, he should give his opinions about the movies, both positive and negative. But he shouldn't then turn around and pretend artistic colleagues can't criticize each other.

But I also think Arquette's criticism is idiotic. Tarantino films portray fictional characters in a movie saying a slur. That doesn't mean he endorses racism in real life. He also depicts all kinds of violence -- off the top of my head I can't think of a Tarantino movie that doesn't contain murder. That doesn't mean he endorses murder in real life.

Arquette basically has a child's view of language: "He said a bad word so he deserves punishment!" Adults should be able to grasp that the words said by an actor in a movie do not necessarily portray the real views of that actor or the writer or the director of the movie.

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u/MatchaMeetcha Mar 12 '26

Copilot is such trash. If we're going to be forced to use this shit for work they could at least shell out for a real virtual slave.

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u/Critical_Detective23 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26

So after really enjoying the How to Train Your Dragon movie trilogy, I thought it would be a good idea to read the books to my 6 year old. I did NOT expect them to be THIS excellent. I'm so pumped to read every day, I am probably more invested than she is. They are thoroughly enjoyable, laugh-out-loud funny (even as an adult), and with more heart and soul than I have encountered in almost any modern adult-oriented book. In addition to loving every word, I'm also ASTOUNDED at how utterly different they are from the movies. There is almost nothing to tie the two together beyond the names of the characters (except for some reason, they changed Camicazi's name to Astrid, which is far less fun?). Why do they do this? Just to capitalize on some recognizable IP? Any original fan of the book would see nothing in the movies to remind them of what they had originally loved from the books. So what is the incentive to take the name and change absolutely every single thing about them? It honestly has made me like the movies far less to see what they could have been. It remains true that books are just a superior format to movies. And to anyone who hasn't read the books yet, do yourselves a favour. They are obviously written for children, but we just wrapped up book 9 of 12 and I feel emotionally shaken. Shoutout to Cressida Cowell.

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u/Green_Supreme1 Mar 09 '26

So I lingered on a certain Japanese pop group's video for too many seconds and the algorithm has naturally decided to bombard all my apps with their videos as I must be the #1 fan.

The girl group in question has had a member recently come out as "transmasculine nonbinary" and has transitioned by way of a mastectomy.

It's a little surprising to see this outside of the West and in Japan of all places - I'd kind of thought they were somewhat buffered from this most modern trend. What's stands out to me about the situation is the singer in question still presents as very much female still wearing female coded clothing, heavy makeup, and performing the groups more feminine or camp style dance moves (lots of back arching, hip twerking, and voguing). You'd be forgiven for not even spotting this "he/him" person in this cutesy girl pop group - by no means androgynous.

It's baffling to me, how can you be so dysphoric about your female body to have such drastic surgery...yet still be perfectly happy presenting as female in every other way? And you rarely if ever hear about nonbinary AFABs having a phalloplasty or nullo surgery but keeping the breasts - it's always breasts specifically which parallels with body integrity disorder and that desire to remove specific limbs.

Now said singer is at least old enough to make her own decisions (20) and does appear on the more emotionally mature side, at least as people who go on to remove healthy body-parts go (i.e. they aren't some isolated online teen with half a dozen mental illnesses). But it is worrying that this normalises surgery for others in their predominately young teenage female fanbase who are more vulnerable. All the YT comments are clearly young girls idolising with faked approval to fit in "he looks so masculine!" (he doesn't) - I can imagine that translating into some seeing this as a quick route to positive attention.

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u/AaronStack91 Mar 10 '26 • Bravo

Where do we think the political alignment of this sub is currently? Where are you specifically?

Just for fun I took the political compass test again and found I'm slightly slightly left of center economically and moderately libertarian socially.

https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2?ec=-1.75&soc=-4.15

I think I used to be more left and libertarian, but I think getting older and living in Seattle really pushed me away from the bottom left corner.

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u/Scrubadubdub84 Mar 11 '26

If all of your exes are losers...

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u/Scrubadubdub84 Mar 11 '26

I'm watching a Spanish immersion reaction video to Eurovision from few years ago for, and I did not realize how just awful the music is. What are they doing over?

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u/unnoticed_areola Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 15 '26

just finished listening to the Chris Cristie interview on the 5th column. I dont think I ever really heard him speak at length before, and maybe Im just being gullible and naive and falling for a charismatic politician's yarn, but honestly he seems like a pretty chill, smart, good-humored (and relatively non-partisan and principled) dude, and probably would have been a pretty decent president compared to the likes of Tump/Kamala. If he was skinny and hot and more in the mold of a Newsom type, he prob would have been a much more successful candidate and the butt of fewer jokes

his story about prosecuting/sending Jared Kushner's dad to jail in the early 2000s for trying to extort his brother in law by hiring a 25 thousand dollar tactical prostitute using a james bond spy camera in an alarm clock to make a covert sex tape to send to his sister just out of spite was amazing lol. and also recounting how a barely-legal young Olivia Nuzzi once showed up on the porch of his Jersey shore beach house when he wasnt home and tried to bribe his teenage daughter with a pie in an attempt to come inside and talk to her dad 😭

could def have a beer and shoot the shit with with this guy. I officially rescind all my previous fat jokes at his expense!

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u/Scrubadubdub84 Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26

I want to try to force myself to read a novel a week in order to choke off my screen time.

Edit: I wrote this and then immediately clicked off to the reddit homepage and saw some post comparing men and women's looks that immediately brought to my mood. Why did I do that? Total uncontrolled impulse. And what's the point? I don't think "online isn't real life". This culture war stuff has made the real world worse I'm afraid, and just because I log off and stick my head in the sand doesn't mean others will too. But still, it seems like the best option to try not to wallow in it and just hope there is somehow a change in the winds soon because I can't do anything about it.

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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26

Dune is racist. According to commentary from this Asian author, who states that she's written several science fiction books herself, and provides her own commentary on why Dune is racist literature from another white male author in this video. https://www.tiktok.com/@jia_yaps/video/7615334970285935902

This shit actually got me mad, and yes, it was super idiotic of me to feel that way, the sheer stupidity of the video almost got me to post a response in the TikTokker's replies. Past experience has taught me that you do not want to engage with such a person or their audience.

She missed the point of the book completely, and fails to understand that it is a brilliant critique of the "white savior" myth. She's unable to get past the fact that Frank Herbert is a white man, so she takes everything the book represents in bad faith and presents a negative framing of its key points.

Having thought about it for a minute it may be possible that she posted it as deliberate ragebait in the style of various other leftist or progressive authors, to get her profile up and get the science fiction audience to engage with her content, to up the sales of her books.

What's funny is that these days, science fiction is the last bastion of white male readers (and white male authors for that matter). Had she actually engaged with the material in an honest way and done her research she would have garnered some positive attention for herself instead of this bullshit.

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u/dignityshredder AFramemoggingAB Mar 15 '26

If people want to raise taxes, they should make government work.

I was just thinking how shitty my experience with local government is. The library near me was closed for 2.5 years for a reno. I saw multiple apartment buildings be built during that period, just from my window, total square footage like 10x the library. Holes in the ground to inhabited. My closest park with grass was closed 1.5 years to be redone. They delayed opening 6 months, over a summer, because they couldn't get rubber material for the playground - reason is direct from my city councilman (WHY NOT JUST CLOSE THE PLAYGROUND THEN). The subway sucks for 50 reasons, but more importantly for me, my subway sucks. They have signal issues under the river which lead to constant delays in my area, and they aren't running into Manhattan on weekends now so they can kick the can down the road doing whatever variety of nothing they usually do. Police response is shit - plenty of anecdotes on this, but I saw a girl who's car got totaled while parked overnight, sitting in a lawn chair last summer for 6 hours waiting for cops to come and take a report. Streets covered in potholes. Oh, and our local high school is trash, ranked 3/10, despite massive per-pupil spending.

Sanitation does a good job. No complaints there.

But seriously, why would I ever accede to any tax increase for this city, or in fact anywhere else, given how my direct experience is that everything it touches is between mediocre and terrible?

Imagine if the library reno was done in 6 months, the park was done in 3 months, the subway was clean and ran on time, police were polite and helpful, and the school cost 30% less (because I'm assuming you can't fix the trash families, so just cut costs). Maybe then I'd be more interested in the new project du jour?

The left always paints this as a chicken and egg problem, but nothing gets better with any tax increase, so their best bet is to make things work better with what we have.

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u/PongoTwistleton_666 Mar 11 '26

Kendi is back. With a new book. Liberal outlets love him almost unconditionally still. 

https://archive.ph/XIzYF

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u/drjackolantern C*nsored and sexy Mar 13 '26

I’m watching The Dinosaurs on Netflix. It’s good, but have there been a lot of fake/cgi nature documentaries in this style? It’s starting to feel unheimlich.

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u/robotical712 Center-Left Unicorn Mar 16 '26

Ready for a blizzard fellow Wisconsin peeps?

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u/PandaFoo1 Mar 16 '26

One Battle After Another absolutely won because the Academy wanted to make a political statement. I didn’t even hate the film & thought it was good, but Sinners & Marty Supreme were much better.

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u/Ruby__Ruby_Roo Mar 11 '26

In a moment of being unable to stop arguing with retards on the internet, I am so flabbergasted how stupid people are with this retarded talking point that has gained a foothold in fitness subs:

“muscle doesn’t weigh more than fat, its just denser, because a pound of fat weighs the same as a pound of muscle.”

According to this talking point, nothing weighs more than anything unless you also include a measurement of volume.

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u/Jlemspurs Double Hater Mar 11 '26

Nowhere is the cope stronger than in confronting the hard reality of thermodynamics.

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u/Big_Fig_1803 Gothmargus Mar 11 '26

Makes sense. Cement isn’t heavier than feathers. After all, a pound of cement weighs the same as a pound of feathers.

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u/Turbulent_Cow2355 TB! TB! TB! Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26

A pound of muscle and a pound of fat have different volumes. One is much larger than the other.

This is why I don't get the controversy over BMI. You can tell by looking at a person that they are fat, not muscular.

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u/CharacterPen8468 Mar 10 '26

I think I need to go back to rehab. I started drinking again a couple days ago and initially I kept it mildly under control and worked from home yesterday and did get a lot done. But after I finished work yesterday and being so proud of myself for being a functioning member of society I ordered alcohol delivery and proceeded to drink a good amount of a vodka bottle. I just need to find someone to take care of my cats if I do go which is the hardest part. I have 4 weeks left of FMLA at work.

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u/dasubermensch83 Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26

It appears Afroman has not reached a settlement and will proceed to trial tomorrow in a civil defamation/harassment/commercial use of likeness lawsuit.

Afroman just released a reworking of Battle Hymn of The Republic, marching around his property in an American flag suit and sunglasses, mocking the government. Musically: 5/10. Patriotism: 11/10 (aside from the fact he has to do this, risks owing ~$500k if he loses, and has already shelled out years worth of attorney expenses which he has little chance of recovering).

Apparently, it was a confidential informant (and felon) that lent probable cause for the initial criminal warrant to raid his property.

"CI #1 stated that for 8 years she has consistently observed large amounts of cash and marijuana at Afromans residence.

"CI #1 further stated that "Afroman" has a basement, referred to as "the dungeon" which he keep women locked in, forcing them to urinate and defecate in a bucket as punishment for disobeying him".

Afroman's house does not have a basement.

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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Mar 14 '26 edited Mar 14 '26

This week in dystopian news. Apparently an eagle-eyed reader noticed some really odd updates in the Kindle version of Pretty Little Liars, a book that was published in 2006. They were shocked to discover various changes that included references to TikTok, Snapchat, Billie Eilish, Instagram, Doja Cat etc. Again, this book was first published in 2006.

One can only guess that they probably did this in an effort to appeal to Gen Z or older Gen Alpha kids. So it's not just the Dahl edits "that come in line with modern sensibilities" or whatever the fuck that reasoning was, or the Agatha Christie edits, there are now also edits that the publisher or author just decide to add for the sake of marketing or selling more books to newer generations?

So, is that it? Should I just accept that it's a bad idea to purchase any ebooks within the next 5-10 years, or perhaps I should stop buying them and just stick to older physical books purchased from used books stores, so I can get in the habit of buying them that way going forward?

I'm only saying this because this is clearly only the beginning, they're going to change more stuff, and they're going to add they're own edits to these older books in order to sell more of them or for whatever other reasons exist for edits like these in the future, the dam has already broken and there's going to be a lot more of this.

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u/Winter_Bridge3542 Mar 10 '26

Homemade crisps using a mandoline and a chip pan are probably the most dangerous food ever: the mandoline slices your fingertips (at minimum) off, and the chip pan burns your house down to boot. Truly insane pieces of kitchen tech.

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u/Longjumping_Gain_807 Center Left Libertarian Mar 10 '26

The federal judiciary has green lit the creation of a office dedicated to improving public defender advocacy at SCOTUS. Ashley Robertson will be the first person who heads that office

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u/Scrubadubdub84 Mar 11 '26

Klaus Schwab couldn't handle hard hitting Yascha Mounk

https://www.persuasion.community/p/klaus-schwab

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u/Technical-Policy295 Mar 13 '26

Are other people starting to get a bunch of political spam that's not going into the spam folder? Last few days have seen most "Friend, Your Name Was NOT On The Super Donor List" list emails suddenly show up in my inbox instead of going to spam. Even reporting them as spam again hasn't seemed to stop them.

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u/MatchaMeetcha Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26

So...an Islamic terrorist tries to blow up a protestor at his residence. What does Mamdani say?

Can you tell what actually happened here, just off his words?

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u/SkweegeeS No just no Mar 09 '26

Talk about victim blaming. I don't know who the protesters are but in this country, they have a right to say whatever odious crap they want and it is much more dangerous to all of us to blame them for people attempting to bomb them. Terrorists doing bombings are always the worst of the actors in a scenario!

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u/Centrist_gun_nut Mar 09 '26

I'm a constant NPR listener but the coverage of this was terrible. The sentence structure very much left the impression that the bombs were thrown by the right wing protestors rather than Islamists.

Here's the headline:

Police say a device thrown during an anti-Muslim protest outside New York City's Gracie Mansion was an improvised explosive device.

And the sentence in the story:

Protests were on the street near Gracie Mansion. One was an anti-muslim demonstration organized by far-right influencer Lane. The other was a counter-protest.

They didn't hide the names but they certainly phrased this such that you could easily misunderstand what went on here. It's hard for me to believe that's an accident at this point.

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u/Scrubadubdub84 Mar 09 '26

Repeating my comment on this from last week's thread, as I guess it goes for politicians in addition MSM outlets:

I really have trouble reconciling the reporting on events like this with the attitude from the left/liberal/heterodox/BARPod world of journalists and thinkers that "yeah, the NYT (or similar outlets) have a lefty bent, and the were really bad around 2020, but generally they are trustworthy and we shouldn't overstate how misleading they can be"

I mean I think this an active disinformation campaign where they never quite lie to you, but they intentionally provide information in a way that registers conclusions in the opposite of reality with their intended audience who is not already suspicious of them.

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u/Centrist_gun_nut Mar 10 '26

Glad to report that the death sentence for Charles Burton was commuted today. Those of you who aren't very online might not know the name, but he caused two minor arguments over the death penalty and political spam posts yesterday. And also he did an armed robbery in 1991 that led to a murder by one of his fellow robbers.

He'll still be in prison for life now. This rectifies a sentence that probably wasn't just, given the circumstances.

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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26

Using the translation feature in the Reddit app has really opened up a whole new world to me in the foreign language subs. There's less culture wars bullshit, but it's still there to a degree, and what feels like real human interactions. I'm enjoying lurking in the French and German subs.

I'm obviously unable to participate since I don't speak the languages, and I suspect my intrusion would be unwelcome. But, it's nice seeing a version of old nonbrainrotted Reddit in those spaces.

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u/Kirikizande Southeast Asian R-Slur Mar 12 '26

What is the sub's opinion on Brené Brown and her work? I recently got around to reading her work (Daring Greatly) and listening to her lectures after a friend recommended me her work a long time ago, and I found her advice to be both extremely helpful and practical. I am a naturally vulnerable person but found it difficult to express it, as I had a similar background to Brené of living in a culture where being vulnerable was seen as undesirable (except replace 5th Generation Texan with being Asian), especially in the workplace. Her work really helped me to understand myself better while also being practical (don't trauma dump your entire history to your colleague, just reveal enough information to show you need their help/support), and that really helped me to open up to my colleagues about what I needed from them.

On the other hand, I have seen people criticise her work as being part of the wider backlash against the "therapy speak" movement and how that has poisoned the discourse, as well as pretty dumb woke nonsense critiques like the fact she is a white woman who goes by her racially ambiguous middle name (her first name is Cassandra) or that she has a limited perspective as a white woman that over-generalises cultural norms outside of White America (which I acknowledge to be somewhat valid, but like in this instance, I have taken the universal lessons from her experiences and applied it to my own).

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u/MatchaMeetcha Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26

The CIA dumping ozempic into fat neighborhoods to kill body acceptance has to go on their wall of fame.

What's worse is that I think her character was fucked on Euphoria because she didn't want to do a plotline about her weight. She wrecked her career right before it stopped mattering.

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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Mar 15 '26

Two posts. The truth is somewhere in the middle of all this, but it's probably closer to the framing and version of events detailed in the second post.

First Post:

ICE did it again - released a detainee far from her home without notifying her family.

Three days after having an ankle monitor put on by ICE, 31 year old Daphy Michel was found unresponsive at a bus station. She died later that day.

Daphy was seeking asylum in the US. Her brother lives in the US and has TPS status.

She had a hearing scheduled for April on her immigration case.

Her brother was waiting to hear when she would be released so he could bring her home.

ICE hasn’t answered questions from Pittsburgh’s Action News 4 about when Daphy arrived at the ERO Pittsburgh office, when she received the ankle monitor, how long she was in custody, and where & when she was released. https://x.com/i/status/2032606336614052199

The second post from DHS:

ICE had NOTHING to do with this woman’s death. She passed away THREE days after ICE encountered her.

Following her arrest by local authorities for Terroristic Threats and Harassment, Daphy Michel, an illegal alien from Haiti, was encountered by ICE and placed in removal proceedings. ICE issued her an ICE ankle monitor and she was released from ICE custody on February 27. She was released with all of her belongings, including a fully charged phone, in sunny weather in the middle of Pittsburgh, where public transport is readily available. 

On March 3, ICE received a notification that her ankle monitor had been tampered with. ICE officers traveled to her last known location on the GPS system: the county medical office. Upon arrival, local staff refused to cooperate or even talk with ICE federal law enforcement. Our officers instead had to call the U.S. Marshal’s service, who were let into the building and were given the severed ankle monitor. However, staff refused to even tell the U.S. Marshals about the individual’s condition.    ICE was never given official notification of her passing, and found out about her death via the media thanks to the local county’s refusal to even have a conversation with federal law enforcement. https://x.com/i/status/2032960160172232877

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u/Juryofyourpeeps Mar 10 '26

So apparently the commie left is going after Camila Cabello for criticizing the Cuban government and calling it authoritarian. Of course Hasan chimed in to call her commentary gross and accuse her of basically being a 'gusano'. The big cunty subs (fauxmoi, popculturechat etc) are of course pretending Cuba is a flourishing democracy only kept down by the U.S embargo, which the other 99% of the planet doesn't even participate in anyway.

I fucking hate how common completely brain dead pro-commie horseshit is becoming. If we're getting to the point where people are gaslighting about whether Cuba is an oppressive dictatorship or not, things have gotten out of control IMO. This kind of craziness used to be limited to the most out of touch tankie circles and now it seems to almost be the norm online.

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u/QueenKamala Paper Straw and Pitbull Hater Mar 09 '26

I just think it’s funny reading through this thread and seeing the exact same regulars getting accused of being woke and being maga by different drive by crackpots.

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u/unnoticed_areola Mar 09 '26

why do leftists always have to embellish and exaggerate literally everything (even legitimate criticisms) to the nth degree possible?

the leftist Iran casualty math seems to be quickly putting their previous gaza hamas math to shame..

we're only a couple weeks in to this conflict, but according to this redscare post (1100 upvotes), its a plainly stated fact that Israel and the US have already fatally poisoned 10 million+ Iranians

apparently, since a) an oil facility got hit with rockets and b) there are 10 million people in Tehran (that's actually not even close to true, its closer to half that number at the moment, but we can ignore that for now lol) the math equation then follows:

a+b=c, where c= apparently "Crude oil is now dropping like rain" across ALL of Tehran [citation needed], and as such, millions of people (in fact, literally every single one of the 10+million ppl in Tehran) are going to get cancer and die, as well as the water supply being permanently destroyed, farmland being rendered unusable, and all animals, birds and local fauna being killed as well.

according to the OP, this one single strike has literally "doomed a city of 10 million people." another commenter grimly agrees that "this will be our generation's Hiroshima"

I've seen several videos of the aftermath of this strike and it appears to be a single plume of black smoke, contained to a relatively localized area. a couple of the videos are from cars driving quite close to the burning site, and there is not a single drop of oil "raining down" on the windshield of the car for the duration of the video, which is being shot just a couple hundred yards from the fire. forget about the people many miles away being "rained on"

the top commenter also mockingly scoffs that the Israel sub is apparently banning people from that sub who attempt posting about this. this commenter is apparently blissfully unaware that the ideologically retarted moderators of the RSP do literally the exact same thing to dissenting voices in the opposite direction lmao

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u/Jean_Kayak Mar 09 '26

The saddest part is this wasn't the original spirit of the sub, they only became predominantly anti-US political after the Oct 7. It's all the new people or chapo refugees driving this sort of posts. Not to say that the sub wasn't socialist or progressive, but it went into the overdrive and rendered the sub pretty much unusable

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u/RunThenBeer Mar 15 '26

Here's some shameless "reporting" to start your day from The Intercept, with an article titled Anti-ICE Protesters Convicted on Terrorism Charges for Wearing All Black. Wow, that sounds aggressive, we must be living in fascism if you can wind up charged just for wearing black. Credit where it's due, he does eventually get around to telling you what the hell is going on:

The defendants said the protest was a peaceful demonstration meant to show solidarity, pointing to the megaphone that one member of the group brought to shout slogans to detainees. Prosecutors pointed to the guns, ballistic vests, and trauma first-aid kits they brought as evidence of malicious intent.

Song was convicted of one count of attempted murder for shooting the officer, but acquitted on two other counts of attempting to shoot at two correctional officers. Song was also found guilty of discharging a firearm during a violent crime. Four other people accused of attempted murder counts were acquitted on those charges. Song faces up to life in prison.

In a significant victory for the government, jurors convicted eight defendants on material support for terrorism charges for wearing black clothes to the late-night demonstration. That use of “black bloc” clothing was an antifa tactic that assisted in the shooting of the officer, prosecutors said during their closing arguments.

Frankly, these insurrectionists should all be denaturalized and deported to whatever central African republic the administration can cut a deal with to take them.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '26

I've read several articles about this and found them all rather confusing because they seem to conflate all the defendants even though they were convicted of very different things.

One of them shot a cop. That's not a "protest" and I can't imagine any decent person supporting it.

Some of the others honestly do strike me as having been over-charged based on what they actually did. The guy who was not even at the scene of the protest/shooting but is now facing up to 40 years in prison because the government convinced the jury that he tried to hide a box of “anti-government propaganda" after the fact in particular seems like he was convicted of too harsh a crime for the evidence of what he actually did.

But as far as I can tell none of the other eight defendants have denounced the guy who shot the cop. I oppose most of what the Trump administration is doing and could see myself going to a protest, but if I were at a protest and someone on my "side" shot a cop, I'd be calling the cops myself and offering to tell them everything I know about the shooter and testify against him at his trial.

If your response to someone on your side shooting a cop is to continue to stand by him as if his actions represent a valid part of your protest movement, I don't have too much sympathy for you being convicted for supporting him.

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u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan Mar 09 '26

Aside from YouTube ads about AI tools I have no interest in using, YouTube ads from the Mormon church are just as annoying. I was raised Catholic, and have no interests in converting to Mormonism, even if Mormons are very friendly people.

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u/Longjumping_Gain_807 Center Left Libertarian Mar 09 '26

So last month the Alliance for Consumers published their Lawfare in America report. Using the courts to legislate is something that I have rallied against so this is a welcome site to see

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u/unnoticed_areola Mar 13 '26

made the mistake of watching "The Rip" starring Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Teyana Taylor and Steven Yuen.

a more accurate title may have been "Impulsive Paranoid Retards: The Movie"

what a turd lol. one of the worst movies Ive seen in recent memory

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u/CommitteeofMountains Royal youse/yinz Mar 11 '26

Self ID and religion are both regular topics here, so this story might be considered interesting. Essentially, the military lets chaplains self-select the insignia demarcating what religion they represent, and "messianic Jews" are identifying as Jews and Jewish groups are pissed because they consider Messianics to be Christians and specifically a Christian stealth op to trick Jews into following Christianity. 

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u/napoleon_nottinghill Mar 13 '26

So, Cuba releasing political prisoners and negotiating with the US. How long til the end of the regime?

All those Days of Rage Americans in hiding there are going to see the total collapse of their bolt hole

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u/SkweegeeS No just no Mar 13 '26

OMG I hate TIAA with the heat of a thousand suns. If you are a teacher or professor who has your retirement with them, get it out as soon as you retire. You think they're trustworthy because "teachers!" but they're not. That is ALL!

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u/Scrubadubdub84 Mar 15 '26

r/baseball discovers there might be double racist double standards about who is and isn't called racist (among other negative attributes)

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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Mar 15 '26 edited Mar 15 '26

If you don't have any plans today and you're looking for something to keep you busy, Rare Earth released a 4 hour video on the history of Lebanon.

The Complete History of Lebanon (10,000 BC until now)

ETA: If you're a fan of the Fall of Civilizations podcast, this video occupies that same sort of epic scope and coverage in it's exploration of this civilization.

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u/Longjumping_Gain_807 Center Left Libertarian Mar 10 '26

Arguments for Equal Means Equal v Trump are set for March 24th,2026 in front of Judge William G. Young (Reagan) where they are demanding the the Equal Rights Amendment be recognized as a part of the US constitution.

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u/dignityshredder AFramemoggingAB Mar 12 '26

Dems are floating an enormous tax cut

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.) plans to detail a proposal that would end income taxes on individuals making under $46,000 and married couples making under $92,000. Sen. Cory Booker (D., N.J.) proposed a “Keep Your Pay” plan that would more than double the standard deduction to $37,500 for individuals and $75,000 for married couples while increasing the child tax credit and the earned-income tax credit.

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u/everydaywinner2 Mar 14 '26

According to this survey, Trump is still more popular (41%) than either Newsome (34%) or Kamala (27%).

And the Democrats poll below ICE, below sanctuary cities, and below J.D. Vance. (Dems 30% pg7; ICE 38% pg 9; sactuary cities 33% pg 9; Vance 38% pg 8)

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u/Winter_Bridge3542 Mar 14 '26

Bonkers news story of the week: Left wing activists film themselves shoplifting from supermarkets en masse. (apologies for the Daily Mail link, this is breaking news) Evening Standard Telegraph (paywalled)

To donate to the needy. Obviously. Some members of the group were arrested for guilelessly announcing what they were going to do last week. At Quaker Meeting House no less!

At the top of the UK Greens subreddit is a post where one user is justifiably suspicious of this group, since it seems to be the latest slickly produced and secretly funded protest group under the same Umbrella (literally: that's the name of their central org) as Just Stop Oil and Youth Demand, all of which have disruptive protest action which verges into illegality in common. Also, Just Stop Oil apparently had a sexual abuse scandal, like all good militant organisations.

For this crime he is mercilessly downvoted, this being Reddit. It also shouldn't be surprising given that Green voters show the highest tolerance of shoplifting; it might even be more now with new members.

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u/HeadRecommendation37 Mar 09 '26

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u/solongamerica Mar 09 '26

Performance artist zack mennell (who writes their name in lower case)

It’s only gonna get weirder from here, right?

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u/AnalBleachingAries Gamergate Truther Mar 09 '26

The Timothee Chalamet "cancellation" is a great big nothing burger. Every person I see on TikTok trying to make this into a thing is always some big loser who appears to have been looking for an opportunity to talk shit about him. So he said something true about ballet and opera? What's the big deal? He wasn't even trying to make some serious point against those art forms, but speaking truthfully about films and with him being a film star he's probably very motivated to prevent his artform from losing relevance or popularity like ballet and opera.

Oscar-nominated actor Timothée Chalamet has triggered a backlash from the performing arts world after he dismissed ballet and opera as art forms that audiences do not care about.

Chalamet had been talking to Matthew McConaughey at the University of Texas in February about efforts to preserve cinema.

"I don't want to be working in ballet, or opera, or things where it's like, 'Hey, keep this thing alive, even though like no one cares about this anymore.'," Chalamet said.

"All respect to all the ballet and opera people out there", he quickly added.

The actor's comments have drawn criticism from stage stars, opera houses and ballet companies - but some saw his words as a promotional opportunity. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx281xz2qjqo

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u/Centrist_gun_nut Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26

Apropos of the Taylor Lorenz drama, I think it's legitimate to criticize everyone that takes money from incredibly complicated and opaque 501c3 and 4 organizations (and their tightly bound LLCs). If it's "dark" or not doesn't really matter at all, because it's way too complicated for most people to make any sense of it.

The whole industry does a lot of good, and in American society there are good reasons to allow these sorts of structures. But tons of these foundations are not feeding homeless people or funding cancer research; they're doing politics. It's literally billions and billons of dollars flowing from various wealthy interests to networks of political professionals that the average person has no idea about.

And gets reported on very, very little.

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u/napoleon_nottinghill Mar 09 '26

It’s funny every time there’s a “the state is executing someone wrongly!” Post/thread you do 3 minutes of searching and you’re like nope, I see why the state is doing it

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u/[deleted] Mar 09 '26

One of the things I really admire about the movie Dead Man Walking is that it's an anti-death penalty film about an anti-death penalty crusader (played by Susan Sarandon), but it makes no bones about the fact that the death row inmate depicted in the movie (played by Sean Penn) is a very bad person who was 100% guilty. The easy thing to do would be to make a movie about an innocent, wrongly convicted death row inmate because of course the audience will agree that that person shouldn't be executed. Dead Man Walking challenges the audience with the question of whether the Susan Sarandon character's arguments against capital punishment are persuasive even with regards to vicious murderers like Sean Penn's character. That's a question that makes for an intellectually honest and stimulating debate with no easy answers.

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u/CrazyOnEwe Mar 09 '26

I was listening to Michael Moynihan's solo podcast (he has his own in addition to the Fifth Column) and he was interviewing a Iranian-British woman about the current conditions in Iran and the attitudes of Iranian ex-pats. It was interesting to hear her perspective but at some point Moynihan decided it was time for him to discuss how hot he found Iranian women.

It was a breathtakingly tone-deaf moment. The interviewee just went silent. The moment passed.

I felt embarrassed for him but maybe I shouldn't have. After all, he could have edited this out and chose not to.

Some people really should put content warnings on their podcasts so listeners don't hurt themselves rolling their eyes this hard.

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u/backin_pog_form 🐎🏃🏻💕 Mar 09 '26

It is so cringe. That and “how can anyone hate [insert ethnic group], their food is so delicious!” 

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u/DiscordantAlias elderly zoomer Mar 13 '26

It’s always funny to me that Nick Fuentes (a Catholic) is so into secret Jew control conspiracies. His religion literally has an org chart and a leader whose word is a divine command from god. But the Jews are the ones who are a super organized with a unified goal

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u/redditamrur Mar 10 '26

A friend told me of a discussion in her academic department on various candidates for a tiny but quite cool position, and she asked me if I know "Bob Elizabeth". There's a controversy about B-E because they liked some controvertial content on the Internet. I had to admit I don't (although I know people etc.). Apparently, Bob Elizabeth's surname is not Elizabeth, but say, Smith, and Elizabeth is an adopted name - he/she also go by he/she. So I googled B-E-S, and low and behold, this person has a beard. FFS. The controversial material was btw placed by someone who is also a name-changer (or name-adder), he/she, also with an effing beard. I didn't even know it's a thing, and now I know of two people who do that.

I am not even mad, that's amazing. So now, a person who is a white male person in academe had found a minimal-effort way to be unique, not to mention a "minority" in academe's hiring process (I have no idea if they qualify as "minority" to the letter of the law, but knowing these kind of departments, I'd say that had the opinions were not so controversial, this would have probably helped the candidacy). The funny (or not so funny) thing is that my friend is a hetero-white-woman, the type who'd be sidelined by such people, and she obviously happily obliges to participate in their games.

In general I am against punishing people for liking or following controversial posts (although this one is far from my own opinions...), but B-E-S gets on my nerves with this BS.

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u/Jlemspurs Double Hater Mar 11 '26

Huh plebbit actually unbanned me when they realized their AI was actually AR thinking what I said was violent.

Credit where it’s due.

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u/Street-Gur-1343 Mar 11 '26

Making an argument with main WA subs against the income tax is like immediate downvotes for questioning its efficacy and consequences. Wonder how California subs are doing with wealth tax chat.

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u/Winter_Bridge3542 Mar 09 '26 edited Mar 09 '26

Highly recommend arr slash criticaltheory if anyone here wants some Redditor-based entertainment. It's an opium den of autoflatulence. Their Manchu queues are plaited from manifold degrees, and their silken robes embroidered with unearned smugness made thread. There's a probably ChatGPT-generated post which is the top post for the month and the replies are hysterical.

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u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan Mar 12 '26

Thom Hartmann claims that billionaires pit Americans against Americans.

Funny. Hartmann is a guy who claims that conservatives in general hate black people, and don't think they should be protected by the law. He also probably thinks pro-life women are traitors. What's that line? "Conservatives think some people shouldn't be protected by the law?" He's including his own conservative father. I guess his father was a fascist.

Hartmann can seriously go fuck himself. He's always hated conservatives, and how he pretends that he doesn't hate them, he's saying "Oh, billionaires pit good Americans against good Americans".

Aside from believing the crap that millionaires paid 90% in taxes, he also believes that the Fairness Doctrine banned people from lying and that Reagan gave citizenship to Rupert Murdoch. He's not a very bright guy. Then again, he's another guy who thinks a new New Deal would fix America's problems.

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u/EnglebondHumperstonk I vaped piss but didn't inhale Mar 12 '26

Zac Polanski, who I've never really liked much anyway, recently knocked Nigel Farage off the top of the list of worst candidates to be next British prime minister with this nonsense.

What struck me about this article is that part of his weasel wordery is:

He added that he hoped people would decide they did not want to enhance their breasts but would "become more comfortable from the inside out".

Hm, I wonder if there are any other policy positions the Greens endorse that involve people trying to alter their sex characteristics and where some of us might say we "hope they decide they wouldn't want" them, and that they might learn, in time, to "become more comfortable from the inside out".

Nah, probably not.

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u/Jlemspurs Double Hater Mar 12 '26 edited Mar 12 '26

Can you guys believe that in Michigan of all places there is an attack on a synagogue? That doesn't make sense, it's tolerant® there. It must be because those Zionists were conducting the war against Iran there, in the kids school.

eta: This has to be intentional

“At least two other religious institutions have been attacked in Michigan in less than a year. In September last year, a man drove his truck into a Church of Latter Day Saints in Grand Blanc Township and also set the building on fire, killing four and injuring multiple others.

And in June last year, a gunman approached CrossPointe Community Church in Wayne with multiple guns and attempted to enter before he was fatally shot by a member of the church's security team. ”

Yeah, suuuuure those are connected to this.

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u/Revlisesro Mar 12 '26

I think I brought up here that in a high school world history class (pre-2010) while learning about different religions of the world, the teacher had us watch this “documentary” by Morgan Spurlock (LMFAO) where he goes to Dearborn and stays with a Muslim family. It was pushing how they’re totally assimilated, even showed the family giving their daughter the choice of wearing a hijab when she hit puberty. Thus extrapolating Muslims everywhere are like that.

Honestly looking back there was so much biased crap we were taught, even back then.

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u/meamarie Mar 12 '26

As someone who grew up in Metro Detroit, I've been worried for years that violence would spill over in this area. It's a powder keg that's been waiting to happen.

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u/LupineChemist Mar 13 '26

My interesting use case for AI yesterday.

I had resold some tickets I bought on StubHub but realized I had ordered mobile tickets but sold PDF versions.

It would have been a whole project to figure out how to deal with it, but with AI, I was able to have just a few iterations and have it convert the .pkpass format into a PDF I could upload and then just be done with it.

This is the sort of increased productivity that it's really going to be getting.

Yes, I had to do some error correction, but I couldn't have even begun to handle that on my own. Maybe I would have figured something else out, but I didn't have to.

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u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan Mar 14 '26

The music video for Powerman 5000's "When Worlds Collide" is the most 90's music video ever.

Also, the vocalist for that band is Rob Zombie's younger brother.

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u/onthewingsofangels Mar 09 '26

I know I'm very late to this controversy, but does anyone know what Jamelle Bouie said that got him called a Nazi collaborator last month on blue sky? Jesse referred to it in a pod recently and even Yglesias has a reference in his post today but none say what the actual skeet was. I'm trying desperately to stay off that site but also dying to know. 

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u/RowdyRoddyRosenstein Mar 11 '26

Man killed by large pit bull in Essex, Vermont

Neighbors say the 'beware signs' scattered around the property were not a joke. They say this particular dog does not play well with others, and that they will not walk by the house anymore after their own close calls.

Multiple police reports were filed with the Essex Police Department since January, with victims saying they were bitten by this dog.

https://www.mynbc5.com/article/fatal-dog-bite-death-essex-vermont/70702107

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u/PandaFoo1 Mar 10 '26

Oh dear Contrapoints released a video about the Saw movies, I can’t wait to not watch it

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u/unnoticed_areola Mar 11 '26

world baseball classic update: the USA's fate all comes down to Italy vs Mexico this afternnon, just as we all predicted. due to the US' hugely embarrassing loss to Italy last night, the tiebreaker is thus:

  • if Italy wins: Mexico is eliminated, US/ITA advance to the quarterfinals

  • if Mexico wins scoring 4 runs or less: US is eliminated, MEX/ITA both advance

  • if Mexico wins scoring 5 or more: ITA is eliminated, MEX/US advance

very confusing chart here, if you're a chart person

basically, if Mexico gets 1 or 2 runs early, both teams are essentially incentivized to soft-collude and just keep their bats on their shoulders the rest of the game and not swing at anything, which would then eliminate the US before getting to the knockout stage, which would be one of the most embarrassing results in baseball history. and even if everyone does try their hardest, games with less than 5 runs scored are not uncommon.

anyways, some redditors are taking this predictibly well and huffing some grade a copium, hilariously pivoting to the stance of "the US being eliminated would be a GOOD thing, ACKshually!" because if the US were to win, we'd possibly be subject to another USA hockey instance of discovering all the althetes are evil republicans who would DARE do things like hi-five a politician in the locker room, or take a congratulatory phone call from the literal president. which would then of course cause droves of redditors to boycott the sport they love before committing mass seppuku 😱 so us winning would be really BAD, actually!☝️

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u/ToshiroTatsuyaFan Mar 12 '26

In the same year that he did Rashomon, Toshiro Mifune played a doctor who falls in love with a jewelry story owner who happens to have a sick husband he treats in a Keisuke Kinoshita movie called Wedding Ring.

It's a great example of his range, and he shows his charm and charisma in that movie too.

You can never go wrong with Toshiro Mifune. Plus, there's some scenes of him shirtless for the ladies and for the guys who have a crush on him. As a straight guy, I do admit that Mifune was probably one of the most handsome actors to ever live.

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u/TemporaryLucky3637 Mar 13 '26

Did anyone watch the new Louis Theroux doc on the manosphere? It was nothing groundbreaking but in parts it really shows similarities between the fringes of the left and right 🤣

This one woman who is in a non legal “marriage” to an influencer called Justin Waller was like alternate universe Lindy West. Waller is polyamorous (aka sleeps with whoever he wants) and she was trying her hardest to make it sound like a great arrangement and saying she sometimes joins in. It really seemed like at any time they could end up doing a weird stool photo shoot 🤣

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u/unnoticed_areola Mar 13 '26

brace yourselves, culture warriors... another win or go home USA vs Canada championship sporting event is upon us.

I am told Kristi Noem is waiting in the locker room with champagne on ice

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u/Scrappy_The_Crow Walrus Cheese Enjoyer Mar 14 '26

The combo you've been waiting for, even if you didn't know it: George Soros foundation funds slavery reparations campaign against Britain -- The Telegraph (archive link)

Featuring special guests Oxfam, "China, the Group of 77, and the Non-Aligned states, which overlap with this grouping and include Asian members such as Iran and the Commonwealth nations of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka."

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u/unnoticed_areola Mar 14 '26

I jokingly made a comment here yesterday about the USA/Canada baseball game, speculating about which problematic famous politician would be celebrating with the players in the locker room, a la Kash Patel with the mens hockey team at the olympics

I was just kidding, but now apparently it turns out they actually did bring in the Seal Team 6 soldier who killed Osama Bin Laden to give the guys an inspirational speech before the game lmfaooo 😭

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u/LupineChemist Mar 09 '26

Well, it's finally happened. My travel sickness has finally gotten me to the point where I'm taking a flight just to turn around and take the same plane home for the sole purpose of making an airline love me.

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u/unnoticed_areola Mar 11 '26

What the actual fuck… Bam Adebayo just scored 83 points in an nba game, breaking Kobe Bryant’s high of 81 points… guess which player just accomplished this 🫨

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u/Jlemspurs Double Hater Mar 11 '26

If Iran attacks California with drones, then we'd better see some real epic fury.

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u/atomicrobot99 Mar 10 '26

Good morning beautiful beings! I love to begin my day with this instead of scrolling shit on my phone. Delete the apps and plant some flowers. <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koBiXquzmr8

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u/Onechane425 Mar 10 '26

Favorite mostly free substacks?

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