people have a serious problem with "things are not good right now and have maybe gotten marginally worse relative to say a few years ago" and "nothing has ever gotten better ever"

Revan@revan.eurosky.social · 16h ago

So this is basically one of the entry points to becoming a reactionary

In general feel like it gets underrated Reagan spent five years as President of a Union; one of the things that made his Presidency more successful than Carter's was that he treated legislators like studio heads he had to bargain with while Carter treated them like Navy subordinates to order around.

Tom Nichols@radiofreetom.bsky.social · 17h ago

GHWB wasn't an actor, but Reagan was, and state office is a good place to start.

The TV show The Middleman would do things like randomly have a shirtless Mark Dacascos fight dozens of Luchadors and use something called the Wu-Han Thumb of Death on their leader. We used to be a proper country.

Marc Dacascos In Middleman

YouTube video by Max Barer

youtube.com

I'm sorry, I thought it was understood the only acceptable Prague cemetery music is the soulful New Wave power ballad:

INXS - Never Tear Us Apart (Official Music Video)

YouTube video by INXS Videos

youtube.com

BeijingPalmer@beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 19h ago

I remember it! boy, the Prague cemetery was cold that year

LMFAO Rick here was touting Platner as the guy whose bio was the way to win back the lost working class voters (despite zero polling showing that happening) and now that it’s fallen apart we’re blaming this on other people “fetishizing combat service.” What a joke.

It absolutely does not cause Trumpism. Can we please stop trying to medicalize/explain away arseholery. Sometimes people are just arseholes. This thinking does more to stigmatize TBI, PTS and Moral Injury sufferers. Platner is just an arsehole.

Rick Perlstein@rickperlstein.bsky.social · 5d ago

A watershed piece. America will have have a very hard time becoming less imperialist as long as combat service is sentimentalized and fetishized, when it actually tends to turn men into broken, hateful people, and helps make things like like Trumpism happen. www.newyorker.com/news/the-pol...

College football

Elizabeth Picciuto@epicciuto.bsky.social · 2d ago

What is your favorite example of when the cheap version of a product is legit better than the expensive one?

“It’s not a fight between left and right, it’s between top and bottom. Which is why I met with a bunch of plague cultists for the most powerful man in the entire world.”

Weedle@weedle.bsky.social · 2d ago

Sure the MAHA activists want to make it illegal for trans people to access hormones but they're so authentic and populist about it so

The ‘anti-corporate’ angle of this is so fucking dumb too; congratulations, you are lining the pockets of quacks and small time con men selling ‘alternative treatments’ instead of Big Pharma, how virtuous

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez@ocasio-cortez.house.gov · 2d ago

There is pervasive corruption across our healthcare and agricultural systems that defy party lines. I meet with MAHA activists because a lot of their concerns are bipartisan issues that major corporations paint as partisan. The fight isn't left and right, it's top and bottom.

Good thread about the history of streetcars as public transportation. I often see really clickbaity "transit" accounts do comparison maps between the early 20th century and the present, saying "look how much transit got wiped out" and...it largely didnt get wiped out. It became busses.

Jake Berman@lostsubways.com · 3d ago

this is not true. there was no conspiracy. it didn't matter whether the streetcars were publicly owned (seattle, detroit) or private (los angeles, atlanta). a thread (because i wrote a whole-ass book on this): 1/?

this is not true. there was no conspiracy. it didn't matter whether the streetcars were publicly owned (seattle, detroit) or private (los angeles, atlanta). a thread (because i wrote a whole-ass book on this): 1/?

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 3d ago

Is everyone aware of the General Motors streetcar conspiracy? In the mid-20th century, auto and oil interests bought up electric streetcar systems across the US and systematically replaced them with bus routes and paved roads, funneling commuters toward private cars.

Had to.

James Van Der Beek Crying in Dawson's Creek

ALT: James Van Der Beek Crying in Dawson's Creek

static.klipy.com

Peoples Pop Polls: The World Cup Of 1996@peoples-pop-polls.bsky.social · 3d ago

GROUP 61 🙃"LOVEFOOL": 38.5% (WINNER) 🏁"Woo-Hah! Got You All In Check!": 38% (Qualifies) ↘️"Follow You Down": 14.1% (Eliminated) 🚏"I Don't Want To Wait": 9.4% (Eliminated) The slimmest of wins for the Cardigans

David Ornstein@david-ornstein.bsky.social · 4d ago

🚨 EXCL: Everton reach agreement in principle with Arsenal to sign Christian Norgaard. Still needs formalising but 32yo midfielder set to join #EFC from #AFC for in region of £7m. Expected to undergo medical next week ahead of proposed move 🚨 @theathleticfc.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/athletic/748...

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country [Director's Cut] (1991) Dir: Nicholas Meyer 01:41:12.850

I'm really tired of the "well, we can't *actually* know what's going on in someone's heart, they may not *actually* be a bigot, they just walk and quack like a bigot because they're an online edgelord" defense.

@tmbhmltn.bsky.social · 5d ago

We would never give this kind of grace to any other form of bigotry

Counterpoint: That fourth bit was great for the first year or so with a new monarch, lots of fun chances to catch people doing the sporting version of writing the wrong year on a document in January

Rodger Sherman@rodger.bsky.social · last mo.

"God Save The King" is a bottom-tier anthem —like 45 seconds long —forgettable melody —7 lines long and 3 of the lines are "god save the King" —nothing about why the country is good, just Monarch Content —gotta change the lyrics when the monarch is a different gender from the last one

Kinda the bleak thing about the post-10/7 world is that everyone who was lecturing people about dog whistles and microagressions and all the ways how things with little surface-level racist intent are actually racist play stupid about anti-semitism lmao

Kinda wild there’s theoretically stuff out there that would be disqualifying in a Governor race that never came out in the Senate race—and that he still lost said Senate race anyway. (Unless he did it in the last four years, which, jeez what an idiot)

Politico@politico.com · 6d ago

EXCLUSIVE: Mandela Barnes is considering dropping out of the primary for Wisconsin governor as state Democrats brace for damaging articles about him to publish.

Journalists viewing governing as entertainment and not as work is just going great for society

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (1999). This and StarCraft's menu are burned into my memory.

Oh, my God. Nicest guy. Was on the Pogues bill at Carnegie with him. His love of music was palpable, infectious, radiant. I’ve seldom seen a musician as connected to the moment of the song as he was that night, in deep communion with the song & the people playing it. So many felt it. Hard loss.

Stereogum@stereogum.com · last wk.

Glen Hansard has died in a motorcycle crash at age 56

I don’t even think the ad will be effective but man does it take gall for the Pod Save guys of all people to start opining on whether it’s damaging to be closely connected with Graham Platner. A truly impressive level of shamelessness

Here’s to 40 years of Lifes Rich Pageant

Absolutely insane that some accounts on here think Andy Beshear is weak for not trying to (somehow) make this guy a senator.

Joe Stieb@joestieb.bsky.social · last wk.

Reminder of what an absolute loon this guy is

1) Trying to pretend this very basic metaphor about repeated maintenance is somehow about Israel-Palestine is absurdly dumb and obviously bad faith 2) The attempted meta-narrative about the phrase is a perfect example of how this movement exists to just pretend Hamas doesn’t exist at all

post malone ergo propter malone@proptermalone.bsky.social · last wk.

yeah you can’t say that shit and *if* you accidentally did you better be tripping over yourself to apologize

Love when people go “campism is bad and it’s bad it’s normalized” and then can’t even go two skeets without normalizing it some more because we gotta say the normie candidate was also just as bad lest the internet think we’re uncool

Also works as Paris-Torres dialogue tbqh

Starfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast@irhottakes.bsky.social · last wk.

PARIS: Um. So like… when I make a decision, will you be mad at me? ATHENA: I am the goddess of wisdom and warfare, favored of Zeus. The frivolities of lesser women are beneath me. PARIS: Oh good. I wasn’t choosing you. *LATER* ATHENA: Odysseus. Kill them all. I’m not horsing around.

Media folks probably also shouldn’t do the thing where they pretend the Tankies aren’t representative of the DSA anymore either when the DSA is electing Tankies to Congress with the most prominent DSA member in the country giving her his endorsement and motorcade

BeijingPalmer@beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 2w ago

the DSA can't do the thing where it's like 'oh we let the tankies set our foreign policy section as a treat' anymore.