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Hey man, we’re having a little get-together in the park this weekend. I would love it if you could make it. We’ll have snacks, and you can bring a six-pack or something if you want. We’ll probably throw some tunes on the portable speaker, catch up, and just enjoy the afternoon.

Oh, one other thing, almost slipped my mind: Could you bring your massive, poorly trained dog?

No sweat either way, but if it’s not too much trouble, do you think your hulking, ill-mannered ogre of a pooch could join us?

It’s looking like it’s going to be a perfect day, and we were just saying, you know who would love this? That scowling, near-feral beast you keep pent up in your studio apartment twenty-three hours a day. You think you could bring him?

As soon as you arrive, could you immediately take his leash off and then, after the fact, ask us if we’re cool with it?

Could you reassure us that—despite his size and general demeanor—he’s actually very friendly?

Trump fans say his conviction is an overreach. But a close look at another recent fraud trial shows his case was run-of-the-mill.

The post To Understand the Trump Verdict, Look at the Case Against Shukhratjon Mirsaidov appeared first on The Intercept.

We are seeing a lot of press lately about Donald Trump’s promises to wreak revenge on his enemies should he get back into power next year. Some of us have been focusing on this for years because Trump made “vengeance is mine” his credo going back decades. He’s never made a secret of it. He even gave a speech at the Christian right’s flagship Liberty University before he ever ran for president and gave them two pieces of advice: always get a pre-nup and: I always say don’t let people take advantage — this goes for a country, too, by the way — don’t let people take advantage. Get even. And you know, if nothing else, others will see that and they’re going to say, You know, I’m going to let Jim Smith or Sarah Malone, I’m going to let them alone because they’re tough customers. Years before that he told an audience in Colorado, “If someone screws you, screw them back 10 times harder. At least they’re going to leave you alone, and at least you’ll feel good.

The post Brushed appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.

Brian McDaid says he was barred from being running for Labour over a 12-year old Facebook post about Israel-Palestine – before he was an active member

The post The Good Knight appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.

Intro You may have seen Hindu Indians expressing their sycophantic admiration for Israel—both online under posts about Zionists as well as in parades and marches.…

It’s always about control Amanda Marcotte: A pair of Texas professors figured out that their female students have sex and, boy, they do not like it. So now the philosophy professor and finance professor are suing for the right to punish their students who, outside of class, have abortions. “Pregnancy is not a disease, and elective abortions are not ‘health care,'” University of Texas at Austin professor Daniel Bonevac sneers in a federal court filing with professor John Hatfield. Instead, Bonevac writes, because pregnancy is the result of “voluntary and consensual sexual intercourse,” students should not be allowed time off to get abortions. If the students disobey and miss class for abortion care, the filing continues, the professors should be allowed to flunk students.

Richard King’s Travels Over Feeling is a lovingly researched and painstakingly detailed oral history of American composer and musician Arthur Russell, who made a prodigious amount of music under several names and across various genres — cello-led minimalism, dance music, pastoral folk, and countless home tape recordings that anticipate today’s bedroom pop. This was before […]

When in Babylon…. “Jesus Is The Answer To All Your Problems,” read the billboard I passed on westbound I-40 on Sunday somewhere between Greensboro and Statesville, North Carolina. Southern Christians especially have a thing for — what is it Donald Trump calls lying? — thruthful hyperbole. Their extravagant promises, their religious puffery, may be well-intended but oversell the product, don’t you think? The larger and louder the claims, even billboard-sized, the more there is a hint that it’s not just you they are trying to convince, but themselves. A lot of places across the South claim the title “Buckle of the Bible Belt.” Back when Southern Baptists were the political equivalent of Boss Hogg in those towns, a Bible verse that tripped off many tongues came from the book Donald Trump famously referenced like a “walked into a bar” joke: Two Corinthians. 2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you. Be in the world but not of the world. That was then.

A 2023 Column Contest grand-prize winner, Laurence Pevsner’s Sorry Not Sorry investigates why we’re sick of everyone apologizing all the time—and how the collapse of the public apology leaves little room for forgiveness and grace in our politics and culture.

Last week, you probably got a New York Times alert saying that the pope had apologized. But Pope Francis didn’t really apologize—his spokesperson did.

The situation was a little odd. After a closed-door meeting of Italian Bishops, local papers reported that the pope had said gay men should not be allowed to train for the priesthood. Pope Francis supposedly argued that, while it was important to embrace everyone in the Church, it was too likely that a gay person might risk leading what he calls a double life—the idea of practicing both the priesthood and non-celibacy, including homosexuality.

On May 29 New Delhi was 52.9 degrees Celsius (127.2 F), only 1.5 degrees less than the world record from Death Valley.

Records are being set all over the world:

Mamenchisaurus: I know I shouldn’t, but I still find myself going through the picture books, looking at all the brachiosauruses and apatosauruses and brontosauruses—and knowing that I’ll never be in there. It’s hard to take. I mean, come on, my neck is huge. I’m basically all neck. When kids draw a diplodocus, they always go way too big on the neck, so nine times out of ten, what they end up with could be on my driver’s license. But when The Land Before Time was casting a “long-neck,” where was my phone call? It just makes me feel invisible, you know?

Utahraptor: I try to practice gratitude. When there’s an A-to-Z of dinosaurs needing to be done—for a song, maybe, or a bedspread—I’m pretty much nailed on for that. So people see me, sure… but I don’t feel seen. They clock the name and think they have me all figured out, but do they know the first thing about me? Hell no. For starters, I’m a Methodist.

In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: Interview with the Vampire, TikTok/Trump, Arcane, Doctor Who, Travis Kelce/Taylor Swift, Reacher, Lost & more!

Knowingly or otherwise, all workers who strike in Britain today — including the hundreds of thousands of nurses, teachers, doctors, civil servants, train drivers, and others who have taken industrial action in the past twenty months to defend their livelihoods — are following in the giant footsteps of the miners, who fought arguably the most […]

Young people leaving care in England are losing their right to local authority housing - because they're trying to better themselves at university