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  • I’ve got a friend that is pretty deep in their Palestine support, to the extent they are part of a social media bubble, and their entire bubble is full of articles and opinions painting Shapiro as an anti-Palestine, extreme Zionist, who is former IDF.

    That’s the information they lead off with when characterizing him - no mentions of his criticisms of Netanyahu.

    Michigan’s large Muslim population wrote off Biden, and the pivot to Harris showed a pretty big jump in support for her vs him. I think that Shapiro would absolutely cost her the race in MI.

    Of course, the opposite could be true - Jewish voters (as well as the incredibly powerful AIPAC) may lean in to Trump if Kamala appears to be too critical of Israel. Shapiro could temper those sentiments.

  • Honestly, I was concerned he was going to proudly proclaim his weirdness and start selling a bumper sticker. Weird would be over in a day or two.
    Instead, it looks like he’s grabbed a shovel and has started digging that hole deeper.

  • Dies The Fire by S.M. Stirling.

    I didn’t hate the plot of the book, but something about the writers treatment of the character interactions, physical descriptions, and sex scenes creeped me out. I just… I don’t know. It was gross. I got the feeling that the writer was fulfilling their own fantasies through the novel. I told this to someone about 10 years ago, and they also felt that way, so I feel slightly vindicated and not like a weirdo who reads too much into things.

  • When I finished reading that I audibly laughed and said “You stupid son of a bitch.” and I couldn’t tell if I was talking to myself or directing that at Steve.

    I did really enjoy the series but I don’t think I’m going to be reading it again.

  • Two quotes from the article:

    Lucas Vinyard and Alejandro Amaya, who have been on paid leave for more than six years, seek decision on whether they will be fired.

    “While the Interior Department refuses to act,” attorneys Daniel S. Crowley and Katelyn A. Clarke wrote for the officers, “the officers continue to remain on administrative leave with significant career and financial consequences, including damage to their reputation, loss of overtime pay, and the ongoing stress” caused by the unresolved employment action.

    I suppose while I would enjoy a 6 year paid vacation from work, I would probably not enjoy not receiving any promotions during that time. They are federal, so they probably do get COLA increases.
    Assuming conflict of interest rules/terms of the suspension allow it, I’m surprised they didn’t seek secondary employment, or even attempt to relaunch their careers at another employer or in another field and simply quit before they get fired. (They’ll probably be listed as a do not rehire, but they won’t have to tell future employers they got fired.)

  • Regarding #2 - My assumption was the reload of the feed happened when you selected a new feed or community from the communities page.
    If that’s an accurate assumption, adding a close button (and/or a forward swipe?) to the communities page would solve the issue fairly easily.

    I mostly can avoid swiping back too far, but when I do, it’s infuriating to have to reload my feed.

  • Their bread and butter has been to stigmatize other people.

    In DEI terms, they consider themselves the ‘in group’ and for reasons ranging from media companies with agendas, conservative billionaires with think tanks and PACs waging influence campaigns, to voter inaction and gerrymandering, they’ve largely felt that they were ‘normal’ in their beliefs, morally correct, ‘mainstream’ and on the cusp of winning the culture war they insisting is being waged upon them. The assumption that they are normal, right, and justified in their whack beliefs allows them to live an unexamined life.

    Trump has largely been their figurehead for the last 9ish years, and he’s so shameless that people calling him weird has no effect on him. I think people have idolized and embraced that shamelessness. Now JD Vance is up there sharing the spotlight and instead of being unmemorable like Pence, he’s not only weird like Trump and his followers, but also awkward and doesn’t steamroll his way through the weird stuff he says. I don’t stay up on conservative news, but whenever I see news about Vance on my feeds recently, it seems like he’s having a ‘please clap’ moment. He’s throwing water on their whole movement with his lack of charisma, and it’s breaking the illusion, so when folks get called weird, that armor just isn’t there.

    MAGA folks being called weird in mass media confronts the illusion of normalcy and stigmatizes them as being part of an ‘out group.’
    I don’t think they’re mad about being called weird, necessarily. I think they’re mad at being told their beliefs are abnormal by what seems like a majority. It’s a crap shoot on whether or not that results in self-reflection, or that folks will be whipped up into more hatred against others.
    I think so long as the response is continued mockery of the figure heads (Trump, Vance, etc), or attacks are on the beliefs but not the regular people, even the hateful ones will exhaust themselves.

  • A couple years ago I got an electric lawnmower super cheap. I only discovered earlier this summer the lawnmower and accompanying weed whacker were being discontinued, and if they break in ways I can’t fix, I’ll have a 60v, 5 amp battery to recycle play with.
    It hasn’t occurred to me to reuse the battery for some other fun project. There will be shenanigans.

  • It sounds horrible, top to bottom.

    I don’t know if the writer knew they were saying this, or even if ‘Sarah’ knows this, but the second to last paragraph just made me shudder.

    In cases of extreme childhood trauma, it’s pretty common to just forget most things before the trauma.
    Not that the stories and clear evidence of trauma didn’t make it clear how serious this was to her. Having personal experience with the memory loss, that piece of information really drove it home how that experience wasn’t merely a collection of traumatizing moments, but was a non-stop traumatic experience for a long enough period of time that it re-wired her brain.

    The misguided notion that punishment is rehabilitation needs to go in every society that still embraces it.

  • Not exactly.
    You’re supposed to apply the treatment and expose your scalp to low-angle sunlight that’s slightly mottled. Something about the incident angle of the light rays paired with the low intensity (due to the dappling) just supercharge the hair growth process.

    Experts recommend applying the mixture to your scalp an hour or two before sunset, and going for a walk through a wooded area. You should begin to see results immediately.
    The hair will grow in very fast during your walk with a large central cluster that may appear to be a black speck or oblong shape. It will sprout with 6 to 8 longer hairs that may appear to be segmented, and may even move with the lightest breeze or touch. This is normal. It’s common to feel a pinching, itching, or even burning sensation with each hair cluster that appears on your head. If new hair clusters stop appearing while outside, please reapply the sugar-water mixture to your scalp.

    It’s not recommended to shower after returning from the forest. This may wash away the delicate new hair clusters before they can root. You should also avoid this in the early morning, as the hair that grows under early morning light is silver and very fine. For some reason this very fine hair has a tendency to grow on your face, even if you have not applied the solution there.

    Source: I am lying.

  • It’s a small amount of protectionism.

    I don’t think it’s foreign ownership or hostile intent. The data and influence angle is shaky - any company, including those accountable to hostile foreign governments can buy data. And that data can be put to use running influence campaigns with our without official platform support on pretty much any platform.

    But TikTok isn’t beholden to the U.S. They don’t have to adhere to the same sorta of content moderation policies, and they don’t necessarily have to have the same values. If I may be conspiratorial, I think that other social media platforms tweak their algorithms in ways that keep U.S. regulators happy
    To me, it’s telling that the U.S. made threats about it until the Gaza war, and that much of the U.S. opposition to it has been engendered through TikTok. It seems once that became apparent, the U.S. set to make good on its threats to shut TikTok down.

    I’m not a big TikTok booster, but I sort of think they’re on the receiving end of injustice here - ironically, for being free in the content they show (U.S.) users.

  • You are correct.

    The order specifies signatures collected by volunteer canvassers. Because it does not specify all signatures, or explicitly includes those collected by paid canvassers, it’s likely the Secretary of State would omit those from their count.

    It’s unclear what the 30-day provisional cure period would entail. It could simply be that they have 30 days to resubmit with the “missing” paperwork*, or 30 days to collect additional signatures, or merely 30 days to continue to argue in the courts.

    I’d like to highlight that the folks behind the campaign submitted all the necessary paperwork on June 27th, and they say they were told that they were not required to submit that paperwork again on July 5th, when they submitted the signatures.
    That this is even an issue reeks of malfeasance and bureaucratic dumbfuckery. It should have been resolved quickly and quietly to allow the people of Arkansas a chance to directly participate in their legislative process.