When you have to explain to this degree YOU are the problem. Excuse after excuse. The guy has a history of assaulting women since high school. Pushed a girl down the stairs for not responding to his advances. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

Assault, misogyny, verbal threats: Records detail new allegations against Rep. Max Miller

Police reports and filings in a bitter custody dispute raise new questions about the conduct of an Ohio Republican as he campaigns for a third term.

motherjones.com

Reposting one of the most egregious examples from a great thread on scams in Google ads and the enshitifcation of the internet.

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)@doctorow.pluralistic.net · 10h ago

When Google's users searched for airlines' toll-free phone numbers, Google directed them to phones that rang in the scammers' boiler room, where they were tricked into giving up their passport info and credit card numbers to boiler-room thieves: www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne... 20/

Not all of Google's enshittification can be attributed to deliberate sabotage. Much of it is the result of neglect. 10/

Google is an absentee landlord. In 2019, they chose to *deliberately worsen* search results in order to make you search repeatedly to find the information you're seeking, because every fresh query lets them serve fresh advertisements: pluralistic.net/2025/05/26/b... 9/

It's a bullshit argument and no one should accept it - but even if you think it's worth harnessing monopoly power to promote a wise king to rule over the internet, you'd still want Google to take that responsibility seriously. 7/

The tacit argument is, "Sure, we repeatedly violated antitrust law in order to monopolize the internet, but the internet *needs* a monopolist. It's scary out there! We have amassed power so that we can protect and guide *you*." 6/

Google - a thrice-convicted monopolist - is the gateway to the internet, with more than a 90% search market share that it attained by buying out all its competitors and bribing Apple more than $20b/year not to start a rival search engine: www.democracynow.org/2024/8/6/goo... 3/

Google Is a Monopoly: Judge Rules Against Tech Giant in Landmark Antitrust Case

In the biggest antitrust case in decades, a federal judge ruled Monday that Google illegally maintains a monopoly over the online search industry, using its market dominance to shut out competitors an...

democracynow.org

Forget "Don't be evil"; Google's true motto is a form of vulgar spidermanism: "With great power comes no responsibility." The internet's *de facto* boss is an absentee landlord. 1/

This is a Horror ...but not like a Well-written scary story...

Holly Lyn Walrath@hollylynwalrath.bsky.social · 21h ago

There is a lengthy pro-AI screed in the latest HWA newsletter and it is . . . a mood.

one mo link for this thread: I wrote about why the BBC's new documentary about Jared Leto shouldn't be necessary -- but why it is, especially right now. I'm in the documentary as well, along with the lead journalist & many survivors 🔥 [gift link] www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/o...

Opinion | Jared Leto and Hollywood’s Open Secrets (Gift Article)

Whispers can fester for years before anyone faces consequences. And the tactics celebrities use to escape scandal have completely changed.

nytimes.com

Timeline cleanse: one of our two new rescue cats, Chappell Ryan. This faaaace! 😻

2 things that stays true across all of it 1) how time-intensive it is. Not just the reporting, the moral injury of the survivors, the psychic weight of wanting to get it right, the impact on lives & careers, and oh yeah, the subject's minions might be threatening you & your side. Daily. Been there.

2) Elaborating on 1st point: To do it right, it's your full time job and then some. For months. Alice McShane & Jessica Sartenaer from BBC did only this. FOR A YEAR. They had others on the team as well. I love indie journalism & have written about supporting it, many times. But wherever it happens

This kind of work needs deep pockets, a lot of people, a lot of time, job security. Lawyers who are the nicest & most skilled killers you ever met. Legacy pub or indie newsletter, this takes time & it's expensive & scary. People w institutional knowledge & experience are key. Even w that, it's hard.

Trans Woman : *speaks Bluesky Mods : Whoa there that's a crime your banned.

Making a moderately famous and well liked cis white man take responsibility for any transphobia, however inadvertent or not, is an actual crime. 💀

Well, it appears that, sometime in the last 17 hours, Gwen Pepperoni was suspended for the crime of pointing out Ken Jennings' transphobia.

8 beaches but only 2 have life guards... Fucking Bullshit

youtu.be/Bb85NvjbBm8?... This is one of those songs, that if you play it on repeat too many times The Internet will do a wellness check.

Operator (That's Not the Way It Feels)

YouTube video by Jim Croce - Topic

youtu.be

Well, it’s invoicing day, and since they’re really apparently not going to pay me for something I wrote for them two months ago, I guess today is the day to post about how @vulture.com fucks over its film freelancers. Long (sorry) thread, with receipts:

Vulture@vulture.com · 2mo ago

There are 118 feature films, plus galas, talks, podcast recordings, and more at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. Our guide to the movies and events worth lining up for.

Mayor Mamdani talked about the racial impact of class and I ahve t seen a single follow up in my email or in any major left publication ..

Catherine O'Hara as Moira Rose: I See

ALT: Catherine O'Hara as Moira Rose: I See

static.klipy.com

it used to be jimmy hoffa and the absence of barkley on sesame street, but now it’s just jimmy hoffa because someone who works at SS workshop said the only thing standing in the way of barkely’s return is they lack the money to restore him. to say i *need* hoffa is an understatement.

G. Willow Wilson@gwillow.me · 6d ago

What's your personal great white whale of an unsolved mystery? The thing you desperately hope is solved before you die because you need to know the answer? Mine is the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum heist. Where the hell are the Rembrandts. I need the full story

@pizzacakecomic.bsky.social

Leo let them have a big fancy Latin Mass at the Vatican early on after he was elected and they were all like Idris Elba “I want you to put the word out that we back up” dot gif about it, but every single thing he has done since has made it clear that was a one-off

I like this take because he’s literally like “actually no WE don’t owe YOU an explanation for why you can’t have the thing you want, YOU explain to US why you want it so bad in the first place when the reasons we got rid of it in the 60s were pretty clear”

NOVEL OUT NOW! Valorous King was your typical YA hero - a knight of the realm, child of destiny, favourite of the king, all that. Now he's nearly 30, riddled with PTSD, back in his home town, and stalking his old PE teacher, who tricks him into going to therapy. At least he's got the dog.

Cable fell onto my office moss, and now it looks like it's USB powered.

Just saw this picture and feel like they fit their platonic roles well

Brendel@brendelbored.bsky.social · 6d ago

The best podcasts are the ones where all three of the hosts energies are so distinct and perfectly complementary that if the show has even 1% more from one of the people it falls apart completely, you need a loud person, a thoughtful person, and a person who says weird stuff that’s the ideal setup

If somebody came to one of my writing classes with a novel about a “24-year-old wunderkind” on Wall Street called Leopold Aschenbrenner who graduated from Columbia aged 19, looked and dressed exactly like this, and crashed the stock market, I’d advise them to tone it down a bit

Tony Tassell@tonytassell.bsky.social · 6d ago

Quote in this story: “The real question is how did anyone invest so much money, and then lend so much money, to a . . . kid with no personal experience and no infrastructure?” as.ft.com/r/5f7537a7-0...