Reading

I posted the following on my Fediverse (via Mastodon) account. I'm reposting the whole seven posts here as written there, but I hope folks will take a look at that thread as folks are engaging in conversation over there that might be worth reading if what I have to say interests you. (The remainder of the post is the same that can be found in the Fediverse posts linked throughout.)

I suppose Fediverse isn't the place people are discussing Rob Reiner. But after 36 hours of deliberating whether to say anything, I feel compelled. This thread will be long,but I start w/ most important part:

You're invited to the premiere of my first animated film.

Stephens parroted Benjamin Netayahu’s scurrilous weaponization of antisemitism to justify any and all of Israel's actions.

The post NY Times’ Bret Stephens Blames Palestine Freedom Movement for Bondi Beach Shooting appeared first on The Intercept.

Israel has no diamond mines, yet it dominates the global trade. This investigation exposes how diamonds sold in the West bankroll Israel’s war on Gaza, fuel violence across Africa, and are falsely marketed as "conflict free."

The post Bloody Diamonds: How Your Engagement Ring Helps Fund a Genocide in Gaza appeared first on MintPress News.

Fewer Americans support capital punishment. Fewer courts are handing out death sentences. And we’ve got way more executions this year.

The post Despite Declining Support for the Death Penalty, Executions Nearly Doubled in 2025, Report Says appeared first on The Intercept.

Parliamentary ‘ping-pong’ occurs where the House of Lords fails to agree a piece of proposed legislation with the House of Commons. The Commons sends a bill it has approved to the Lords, who then amend it and send it back to the Commons. If the Commons rejects those amendments, the bill goes back to the […]

These U.S. funders are exporting the same tactics that have for years helped AIPAC crush support for Palestinians to Europe.

The post Meet the U.S. Donors Funding ELNET, the AIPAC of Europe appeared first on The Intercept.

Nun
Player and their primary partner date solo, but tell each other everything.

Gimmel
Player and their primary partner date together, but only one is happy about the arrangement.

Hey
Player and their primary partner date solo. No one’s thrilled about it, but it’s the only way they can maintain the appearance of a happy marriage that hasn’t been sexually satisfying in years. Still, it’s the suburbs, and people talk.

Shin
Player and their primary partner say they’re taking a break from it all while their kid applies to colleges, but are both secretly sleeping with the bi neighbor who sees the same couple’s counselor with her own wife, who is unaware that she has been having an affair with the nonbinary spouse of her synagogue’s queer Deadhead cantor for sixteen years.

How to win
No one wins.

By late summer 2025, it had all become too much for Bono. Something had changed. On 10 August — the morning that Israeli air strikes killed five Al Jazeera journalists and one freelance colleague in Gaza while extreme food deprivation was becoming widespread — the official U2 website was updated with four separate statements. Each […]