Peter

@xoder.bsky.social

In 1986, contracting HIV meant you were going to die, usually slowly, painfully, and alone. Now it's a chronic illness like hypertension. In 1986, gay and lesbian couples couldn't have their relationships legally recognized and had to adopt elaborate legal workarounds.

Constantine@ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 20h ago

Food, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.

dorian

@doriantaylor.com

air travel is one of those experiences that has gotten monotonically worse over my entire lifetime

question though: has *anything* in the last 40+ years genuinely gotten *better*?

like, there's *more* stuff, sure, but is any of it *better*?

2:58 PM Aug 4, 2026

this is a weird line to draw since the liberal position (correct) is that it's not reasonable to summarily execute people in international waters even if they're involved in drug trafficking and the conservative position is that you must do that even if you kill a bunch of innocent people too

CNN@cnn.com · 2d ago

The US military’s strikes on alleged drug boats have likely illegally killed “individuals who are not involved in narcotrafficking,” Sen. Tim Kaine told the White House, following “a careful review” of classified information he has seen so far.

Soft Rains Day. "Today is August 4, 2026, in the city of Allendale, California. Today is Mr. Featherstone's birthday. Today is the anniversary of Tilita's marriage. Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas, and light bills." RIP Ray Bradbury, 1920-2012

There Will Come Soft Rains
By: Ray Bradbury

In the living room the voice-clock sang, Tick-tock, seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven o 'clock! as if it were afraid that nobody would. The morning house lay empty. The clock ticked on, repeating and repeating its sounds into the emptiness. Seven-nine, breakfast time, seven-nine!
In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interior eight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunny side up, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two
cool glasses of milk.
"Today is August 4, 2026," said a second voice from the kitchen ceiling, "in the city of Allendale, California." It repeated the date three times for memory's sake.
"Today is Mr. Featherstone's birthday. Today is the anniversary of Tilita's marriage. Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas, and light bills."

Source:
https://www.btboces.org/Downloads/7_There%20Will%20Come%20Soft%20Rains%20by%20Ray%20Bradbury.pdf

An initiative on the ballot in Washington state in November would require all athletes seeking to play girl's sports from kindergarten to high school to undergo "genetic screening, a testosterone-levels test, or an examination of their reproductive anatomy" before they can play

The Campaign to Force Genital Exams on Girl Athletes Soon Washington State could require sex-verification tests for those playing sports in schools.
Portrait of Andrea González-Ramírez
By Andrea González-Ramírez, a senior writer for The Cut who covers systems of power. Those physicals, Maria explains, are usually perfunctory: “Like, Are you walking normally? Are you lightheaded? I have never had to take any clothes off. I’ve never felt uncomfortable or violated.” If IL26-638 were to pass and Maria were still in school, she says she would likely drop out of her team. (We’re withholding Maria’s real name to protect her privacy.) “I honestly don’t know if I would be able to do these tests,” she adds. “It would also make me question, If I do it, are all my teammates going to too? Or would I just play with the three or four girls who are willing to or have access to do it?”

It continues to fuck me up that we stay thinking about 9/11 but want to memory hole Covid so bad we're destroying the entire concept of public health in the US.

In the United States, there have been 103,436,829[3] confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 1,238,563[3] confirmed deaths, the most of any country, and the 17th highest per capita worldwide.[43] The COVID-19 pandemic ranks as the deadliest disaster in the country's history.[44] It was the third-leading cause of death in the U.S. in 2020, behind heart disease and cancer.[45] From 2019 to 2020, U.S. life expectancy dropped by three years for Hispanic and Latino Americans, 2.9 years for African Americans, and 1.2 years for White Americans.[46] In 2021, U.S. deaths due to COVID-19 rose,[47] and life expectancy fell.[48]

Yes, too many people miss that point. For folks that just think the administration is inept in everything, you'd be hard pressed to find a president in the last 200 years who was better at getting what they want. You could also say no president learned the lessons of his first term better.

Jill Lawrence@jilldlawrence.bsky.social · 4d ago

"The goal isn’t programs that work well, it’s to save money for their priorities—military interventions, tax breaks for rich people and corporations, and immigration dragnets, deportations, and detentions." www.thebulwark.com/p/hes-making...

Rep. Max Miller’s repeated abuse of my daughter and granddaughter makes him unfit for public office. Thank you for your patience as I awaited results from the focus group before releasing this statement. by Sen. Bernie Moreno

As much as radicals get criticized for being "unrealistic," demanding entire demographics facing literal genocide always maintain mild rhetoric and actions is an absolutely delusional level of conformity to expect. I don't think that gets said enough.