Reading

The United States Forest Service Answers Questions About Its New Policy to “Kill All Ticks and Consign Them to an Eternity in the Flaming Valleys of Hell”

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-united-states-forest-service-answers-qu…
Created
Mon, 13/05/2024 - 22:00

What is the Forest Service’s new policy regarding the tick problem?
We locate the hellbeasts wherever they have made the mistake of existing and send them to the flaming valleys of the Underworld from whence they crawled out during phase one of The Reaping.

How will this be accomplished?
We won’t sleep or see our families until every blade of grass and every pile of leaves is free of the blood-soaked, virus-infected horrors that ticks are intent on inflicting on our people and way of life. For as long as it takes, we will breathe annihilation and drink destruction until Lord Beelzebub’s eight-legged hordes have returned to the fiery womb of anguish in which they gained their wretched powers.

Looking The Other Way

https://www.monbiot.com/2024/05/13/looking-the-other-way/
Created
Mon, 13/05/2024 - 19:44
Why do so many people obsess about false conspiracies, but ignore the real ones? By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 4th May 2024 I am a conspiracy theorist. I believe that groups of people conspire secretly against our interests to line their pockets, cover their backs or achieve political goals. By this definition I […]

Yes, Trump Is A Threat To The Whole World

https://digbysblog.net/2024/05/12/yes-trump-is-a-threat-to-the-whole-world/
Created
Mon, 13/05/2024 - 09:30
His parochial obsessions are going to get us all killed There has been some serious push back on social media to the belief that MAGA peacenik Donald Trump could start WWIII from both the right and the left. Apparently, Joe Biden is a violent warmonger for providing material support to America’s traditional allies while Donald Trump is a dove because he only oversaw a war with American troops on the ground in Afghanistan and ramped up the drone war to unprecedented heights throughout the world. But whatever. Facts aren’t really relevant at the moment. We’re all about feelings and vibes and because Trump has indoctrinated massive numbers of Americans with the lie that the whole world respected and feared him so much that they all bowed down to him and we have world peace for the first time in history. And yes, a number of lefties are similarly deluded about Trump because they haven’t closely observed what he is or what he has planned. Here’s one little example: If Donald Trump wins a second term in the White House in November, NATO may fall apart, a recent wargame found.

Such Dignity, Such Honor

https://digbysblog.net/2024/05/12/such-dignity-such-honor/
Created
Mon, 13/05/2024 - 08:00
Remember when Republicans used to call for the smelling salts because Bill Clinton wore jeans in the White House and Bush ran his campaign promising to “restore honor and dignity” to the presidency? Yeah, that was a while ago. It’s a whole different story today. He also gave am extended shout out to “the late, great Hannibal Lecter” for some reason. Never mind. Totally normal stuff. Very cool. Nothing to worry about.

Local Newspapers Are Lifelines for Climate-Disaster Communities

https://tomdispatch.com/local-newspapers-are-lifelines-for-climate-disaster-com…
Created
Mon, 13/05/2024 - 07:53

When wildfires began erupting in the Texas Panhandle in February, Laurie Ezzell Brown, the editor and publisher of the Canadian Record, was in Houston on a panel discussing ways in which losing local newspapers represents a danger to democracy. Running the once-a-week Record from the Panhandle town of Canadian, she certainly knew something about the rise of “news deserts” in this country. While she was meeting with other journalists concerned about disappearing local newspapers, Brown kept an eye on reports about ignitions sparking wildfires west of her town and posted updates from afar so that her readers would remain informed. “Those fires never stay in the next county,” Brown said grimly. And indeed, as the flames galloped through fallow fields... Read more

Another “populist” grifter for US Senate

https://digbysblog.net/2024/05/12/another-populist-grifter-for-us-senate/
Created
Mon, 13/05/2024 - 06:30
Do they all just blatantly lie about everything? The Ohio race for Senate is pivotal. And the GOP has put up yet another phony: He is running for the Senate as an immigrant who made good, reaching out to Ohio voters with a stirring, only-in-America bootstraps story: arriving as a child from Colombia, taking a risk on a struggling business, and then turning it into a smashing success and himself into a millionaire 100 times over. Running under the banner of Donald J. Trump’s populist political movement, Bernie Moreno, the Republican challenging Senator Sherrod Brown, humbly calls himself a “car guy from Cleveland” and recounts the modest circumstances of his childhood, when his immigrant family started over from scratch in the United States. “We came here with absolutely nothing — we came here legally — but we came here, nine of us in a two-bedroom apartment,” Mr. Moreno said in 2023, in what became his signature pitch. His father “had to leave everything behind,” he has said, remembering what he called his family’s “lower-middle-class status.” But there is much more that Mr.

From The “You Can’t Make This Up” Files

https://digbysblog.net/2024/05/12/from-the-you-cant-make-this-up-files-2/
Created
Mon, 13/05/2024 - 05:00
The “election integrity” party has a little problem with voter fraud. The Georgia GOP went MAGA. And look what happened: Georgia’s Republican Party has removed one of its officers after an administrative law judge found he voted illegally nine times after moving to the state. The state Republican Committee voted 146-24 on Friday to remove Brian K. Pritchard, its first vice chairman, state Chairman Josh McKoon said after the closed meeting. Georgia is one of a number of state Republican parties that have experienced turmoil as supporters of Donald Trump have taken over at the grassroots level, ousting previous leaders and demanding that the party prioritize Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. Many established Georgia Republicans including Gov. Brian Kemp have walked away from the state party organization. Kemp, for example, doesn’t plan to appear at the state Republican Convention next week in Columbus. And yet: But the fervor is having an impact, and demands for “election integrity” have translated into multiple changes to Georgia election law.

Palestinian statehood is the only way forward for peace. Our media don’t help.

https://johnmenadue.com/palestinian-statehood-is-the-only-way-forward-for-peace/
Created
Mon, 13/05/2024 - 04:59
Australia’s recent vote to increase the status of the State of Palestine in the United Nations General Assembly is as welcome as it is historic. The positive vote recognizes that Palestine is qualified to join and recommends to the U.N Security Council that it reconsider the matter favorably. Many human rights advocates were concerned that Continue reading »