it is amazing that he thinks this is the way to build a platform for a Democratic nomination contest in 2028. 1

CalMatters@calmatters.org · 13h ago

Gavin Newsom backs measure to kill the billionaire tax and ban future wealth taxes Gov. Gavin Newsom isn't just fighting the billionaire tax. He's backing Prop. 42, which would ban future wealth taxes in California, too.

Don't forget, the Midwest Horror & Gothic Lit Fest is this Tuesday at Guggman Haus in Indianapolis! Catch me chatting spooky gay books from 6-8pm 🖤👻

No doubt this has occurred to other bystanders as well, but it would seem that a handful of billionaires dropping $150 million into a single state's election in an attempt to defeat a wealth-tax initiative just about makes the entire case for a wealth-tax initiative.

Small island kingdom's state-owned propaganda arm censors woman's pro civil rights message

Mike (They/Them) 🏳️‍⚧️🇵🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿@mxmike.co.uk · 7h ago

Bethany wore a “Protect The Dolls” t-shirt during rehearsals. The BBC posted it on their socials then quietly deleted and reposted it without showing her from the front. On TV last night they actually blurred the message #Strictly

I wonder what would have happened if folks had taken seriously the rise in political violence and threats against women, trans, Black, and antifascist organizers and figures back when we were all getting swatted and sent photoshops of ourselves beheaded

Jamal Greene@jamalgreene.bsky.social · 3h ago

A massive, and massively underrated, threat to a functioning democracy. (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/10/11/u...

Age verification laws that require users to possess a current passport, driver’s license, or similar to prove identity exclude critical populations. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

When No ID Means No Internet: Age Verification and the Right to

Age verification proposals are often presented as a simple tradeoff: sacrifice a little privacy to better safeguard children online. But that framing overlooks a more fundamental question. What

eff.org

Whenever people make memes with this image, i wonder if they remember what the original context it. It kind of bothers me when people use it for flippant fandom bullshit.

I am especially amused by the people who say ‘this reads like an early draft,’ never having read an early draft of anything in their lives, and with no concept of the editorial and publishing process that a book goes through. Brainworms!

Emma Cole@editrixemma.bsky.social · 2d ago

I'm not going to get into it on Threads because I'm not a masochist, but sending your editorial notes to an author for a trad pub book that's already published is insane behaviour. The author vetted it, their editor did, a copyeditor, a proofreader...the book is written the way it is for a reason.

Idk y'all I think the secret police that violently terrorizes our neighbors and doesn't bother following any laws nor vetting the people they hire for mental health problems and histories of violence, and that recruits with nazi iconography may be bad actually

Sam Altman said people are just gonna have to die in order to implement AI. In the very same week, Anthropic claimed it’s a human rights violation to be mean to the computer. These people need to be held accountable. They think lines of code are a person with rights but living people are debris.

The Verge@theverge.com · 3d ago

Over the past year, Anthropic has repeatedly flirted with the idea that its AI models could be conscious in some way. In February, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said on a podcast, “We don’t know if the models are conscious.”

a big part of ossoff's rhetorical success is it doesnt contain the compromise and caveats that are a baked-in part of democratic party rhetoric. theres no pretending that his opponent is just misguided or will be pulled back from the edge by "the good republicans." ossoff is saying "fuck this guy"

Bill McKibben@billmckibben.bsky.social · 2d ago

Figuring out why Ossoff is so effective is an interesting task. I think he's mastering a kind of stern dignity that is uniquely compelling in contrast to the clownish cruelty of the other side. I think the other person who's kind of hit on the same thing is AOC, though in a different register

It's sad to see how the venerable magazines Analog, Asimov's, and F&SF have been made into venues no professional can be associated with. The publisher seems to just be an aspiring hedge fund.

John Picacio@johnpicacio.bsky.social · 3d ago

🧵 Attention, Fellow SFF Artists and Authors -- here is my response to Must Read Magazines, after they presented an Asimov's art contract expecting me to waive all Moral Rights and Copyright to my art. And, I would strongly advise the following to my fellow pros…. 1/

this october instead of donating to us, THE DEADLANDS we're asking you to please considering donating to help our #1 editor in chief @ecatherine.com with the bills stemming from her ongoing hospital stay. no coin fundraiser only fundraising Elise 🖤🖤 pls join us + spread the word

gofundme.com

Happy new Troye Sivan day!! His work has been important to me for years and years now: how unabashedly gay and yearning and horny and intimate and playful and self-reflective it is at turns youtu.be/fYaF00OZ69U

Troye Sivan - FF (Official Music Video)

YouTube video by TroyeSivanVEVO

youtu.be

Changing online policy and social media platform moderation has drastically impacted the work of queer and trans indie webcomic artists. In a new comic, @bellhasabat.bsky.social and @raspberryhazel.bsky.social explore how they’re navigating this brave new world. xtramagazine.com/culture/onli...

Online censorship is crushing indie webcomics | Xtra Magazine

From social media platforms to payment processors, new restrictions are making it harder for webcomic artists to exist

xtramagazine.com

"But what's causing it is unclear" pal, I think it's pretty fucking clear

The Washington Post@washingtonpost.com · 3d ago

Young teenagers are less likely to identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual than a few years ago, according to a new analysis. “It really does look like a free fall,” Jean Twenge, a professor of psychology, said. “But what’s causing it is unclear.”

I know I am about as biased as possible on this but go to an indie bookstore. An indie bookstore's vibes are the opposite of...all of this. You'll be surrounded by memories, stories, brave visions of the future that don't ignore our barbarous present. Your brain can be quiet AND full. Seriously.

Some thoughts about what happens when those who have been othered gain power. Do those who have been othered repeat the same power mechanisms that were impressed on them? (1/2)

I talked about what I consider complex joy — and why I believe that is more useful for our times than simple joy — with Chapter House Journal. Full interview link: chjournal.com/chapter-hous... Full interview link also in bio.

Anand is the best (and I'm doing an event with him at, yes, @cityartssf.bsky.social Thursday, for his new book Man in the Mirror). Couldn't agree more that cities are refuges or places of last resort for people kicked out of rural/suburban/pseudo-idyllic America.

David Roberts@volts.wtf · 6d ago

Holy shit.

His marks in publishing will only accept the "it just works" of his scam so long as his fake-ass garbage machine creates the racist outcome they've been longing for

The Bookseller@thebookseller.com · 4d ago

The co-founder of Pangram has defended its AI detection tool from suggestions that it disproportionately penalises authors of colour, while saying there has been a “huge upswing” in adoption of the platform “in the literary world”. 👇

and in the case of erotic fiction, feel free to remind others that using sexually-hostile or threatening language and demanding disclosure of sexual trauma or assuming things about real people's sexual preferences and proclivities is a form of (real) sexual harassment against a (real) person. peace.

the best responses to a stranger casting moral aspersions in an attempt to publicly humiliate you are, 1. ignoring the person entirely, 2. explaining that you refuse to engage in the conversation and bidding them an honest good day, and 3. "kiss my ass."

one of the best decisions you can make as an artist is to stop talking about your artwork from a position of defending it. the artists statement should be a tool of pride, community, and conversation, not an appeal to those who had no interest in (or ability to) understand it in the first place.

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 3d ago

Breaking News: The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson. nyti.ms/4yCUebH

This is the state of things in India for Bengali Muslims; people who've lived in Bengal (the Indian state) their entire lives being denied their right to vote & then being shoved into concentration camps on 'suspicion' of being from Bangladesh (the country).

Deleted in SIR, four Bengal men now locked at Chhattisgarh detention centre for over a month

Four Bengal men detained in Chhattisgarh for over a month after SIR deletions fight legal battle back home amid concerns of citizenship and tribunal delays.

thehindu.com

Indrapramit Das@indrapramitdas.bsky.social · 4d ago

This is what rigging in a democracy-turned-fascist ethnostate looks like. Even as Opposition parties & other groups protest the regime's vote rigging and mass disenfranchisement of Indians in Delhi, the BJP happily turned a by-poll in my state into a one-party election in their favour.

There are so many people, so many, that love film and want to dedicate their whole lives to making films, in front of the camera, behind it, in editing suites and casting rooms and makeup trailers. And that these locusts can come in and just devour the industry, take it from us all, is devastating.

Ray Pride@raypride.bsky.social · 4d ago

“Workers change the sign on the Warner Bros. water tower to say ‘A Skydance Corporation’ on Tuesday” GETTY IMAGES

First I hear about this, wishing Elise quick healing. Please spread the word and help if you can.

Usman T. Malik@usmantm.bsky.social · 5d ago

Elise Tobler, editor of the fabled SHIMMER magazine and now THE DEADLANDS is hospitalized after cancer and an infection. She made SFF an inclusive, interesting place and broke out many authors. Help if u can gofund.me/6ea1bf7a4

that kind of discovery requires a different world of in-depth reviews and critical essays in a sphere of independent magazines and bloggers &c. in the absence of a robust bookish internet of this kind, what you get is books that vanish into the dark and can at best hope to be "rediscovered" some day