Reading

Created
Wed, 23/04/2025 - 22:00

1. Grandparents who are alive, healthy, live nearby, and agile enough to get down onto the floor to clean up meals and snacks but not too agile that they would rather be out walking their shih tzus, biking across the Dutch countryside, or doing literally anything else with their time.

2. A parent who can exclusively work from home and their company will happily pay them to jiggle their mouse every hour, leaving plenty of time for the toddler’s requests for the parent to sing twenty-eight rounds of “Down by the Bay.”

3. A Swedish au pair named Maja. Her family is independently wealthy, and she’s just doing this “job” so she’ll have something for her college applications. All she asks is to stay in the guesthouse (that you definitely have) and be paid in Mint Oreos.

4. A community college student named Maya, whom you have scammed into coming to your house every day to be your unpaid intern. She mistakenly believes she will receive credit for a class entitled: “Early Childhood Development and Perpetually Sucking Mucus Through a Straw.”

Created
Wed, 23/04/2025 - 20:29

Last week Trump blinked. He paused reciprocal tariffs above 10% for all countries bar China. Then he exempted electronic goods coming out of China, including smart phones, the price of which was about to go through the roof for American consumers. Trump’s tariff policy has not yet been defeated. And it would be a mistake […]

Created
Wed, 23/04/2025 - 17:00
archive - contact - sexy exciting merchandise - search - about
April 23rd, 2025next

April 23rd, 2025: Hey, did you know I wrote a choose-your-own-path STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS book last year?

Created
Wed, 23/04/2025 - 14:56
Fiscal Failure & The French Revolution

(Post by Bruce Wilder, Elevated from the Comments)

The French Revolution is in many ways, it is the prime historical example of state failure related to fiscal failure (the inability to tax the rich in particular) leading to revolution (and post-revolution, to the unleashing of state capacity in Napoleonic empire building)

Ancien Régime France at the end of the 18th century had an underdeveloped financial sector, was overpopulated relative to its agricultural productivity, had lost a big chunk of its colonial empire and despite the theoretical advantages of its 17th century legacy of centralizing absolutism, was a litigious society of particularism, privilege, and resentment.

Created
Wed, 23/04/2025 - 09:40

As Fox News seethes over pro-Palestine slogans at a California music festival, founders of the Israeli rave attacked on Oct 7 claim to be “deeply hurt” by the display. Yet one of the founders has openly bragged of serving as a top Israeli military intelligence asset involved in the Gaza genocide. Amid a full-blown corporate media freakout over Irish hip hop trio Kneecap projecting “Fuck Israel – Free Palestine” during their set at the Southern California music festival Coachella, the […]

The post Nova festival founder outed as Israeli intel collaborator involved in Gaza genocide first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post Nova festival founder outed as Israeli intel collaborator involved in Gaza genocide appeared first on The Grayzone.

Created
Wed, 23/04/2025 - 09:30

“More than 150 university and college presidents co-signed a letter Tuesday condemning the Trump administration’s recent efforts to dictate the policies of private higher education institutions in exchange for federal funding.”
NBC News

- - -

As president of Frat Party University, I am proud to lead US News and World Report’s “Top Party School” for twelve years running. It has been another incredible year of all-night ragers, never-ending keggers, and our annual “Spring Splash” that draws both hunks and hotties from across state lines.

But all of that is under threat.

The Trump administration has sent my office a list of onerous demands that threaten our very independence. Well, hear this, President Trump: FPU is not complying.

Created
Wed, 23/04/2025 - 04:00

This year, as cities around the world commemorate Earth Day, we, the Trump administration, will instead be celebrating America—the only part of the Earth that matters. And as part of our ongoing efforts to make America great again by slashing wasteful government spending, we are canceling all funding set aside for Earth Day tree plantings. Because we believe trees are DEI.

Urban tree planting initiatives are designed to restore the tree canopy in low-income neighborhoods, which have fewer trees than wealthier neighborhoods do. Did the trees in these low-income neighborhoods die because the residents didn’t take care of them, or because they were systemically cut down during periods of civil unrest so that police helicopters could better surveil those areas? It’s impossible to know for sure.

And does planting trees in cities reduce the urban heat island effect, lower air pollution, and decrease rates of asthma and respiratory illness, the way “scientists” say? We think the jury is still out.