WesternInfidels

If you have some citizens with real citizenship and other citizens with provisional, revocable citizenship, then you have created a system, both in theory and in practice, with first-class and second-class citizens.

Yet I have a feeling those of us who really were born here are never going to have a citizenship advantage over the likes of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Patrick Soon-Shiong, and so on.

The belief in patriarchal hierarchy on the one hand, and the belief that women and children are less-than-human property that exist for the benefit of men on the other, may not be identical beliefs. But they sure go together easily, don’t they?

What if the connection between reactionary MAGA politics and the sexual abuse of children is deeper than we want to admit?

The name for this idea is pedocon theory.

Pedocon theory suggests that this is not an aberration. Pedocon theory suggests that this was the inevitable result of the conservative project, because the conservative project is inherently pedophilic.

– We Need to Talk About Pedocon Theory

If Moderna can figure out how to use mRNA to give you Mar-a-Lago face, mRNA will suddenly be in good graces again.

The National Park Service said in a statement provided to USA TODAY that, with limited exceptions, only the U.S. flag and other authorized flags are permitted on flagpoles managed by the agency. The policy was outlined in a directive the agency issued on Jan. 21. Exemptions can include flags that provide historical context…

Well if the facts aren’t the facts and the truth isn’t the truth I guess the rules get to not be the rules, too.

Not enough people are aware that the compound added to gasoline, tetraethyl lead (TEL), was understood to be potently toxic before it was used as a gasoline additive. Effective alternatives to TEL existed, but TEL had the advantage that its use could be patented. It could make some very rich companies even richer.

Short article from Smithsonian Magazine, 2016: Leaded Gas Was a Known Poison the Day It Was Invented

…in February 1923, a filling station sold the first tank of leaded gasoline. [TEL developer] Midgley wasn’t there: he was in bed with severe lead poisoning, writes History.com. The next year, there was serious backlash against leaded gasoline after five workers died from TEL exposure at the Standard Oil Refinery in New Jersey, writes Deborah Blum for Wired, but still, the gasoline went into general sale later that decade.

Long, long article from The Nation, 2000, by way of archive.org: The Secret History of Lead

In March 1922, Pierre du Pont wrote to his brother Irénée du Pont, Du Pont company chairman, that TEL is “a colorless liquid of sweetish odor, very poisonous if absorbed through the skin, resulting in lead poisoning almost immediately.” This statement of early factual knowledge of TEL’s supreme deadliness is noteworthy, for it is knowledge that will be denied repeatedly by the principals in coming years as well as in the Ethyl Corporation’s authorized history, released almost sixty years later. Underscoring the deep and implicit coziness between GM and Du Pont at this time, Pierre informed Irénée about TEL before GM had even filed its patent application for it.

A concise history in timeline format: The Rise and Fall of Leaded Gasoline: An Absurd and True Timeline

1923: GM partners with Standard Oil (now Exxon) and DuPont to form Ethyl Gasoline Corporation. They market the product as “Ethyl,” deliberately avoiding the word “lead” despite known toxicity.

I have heard it said that the prosecution has enormous power over what grand juries get to hear, to such an extent that grand jury results are mostly just a way of formalizing what the prosecutor has already decided. If the state wants an indictment, the state pretty much always gets one.

I’m confused. If you don’t like the headline, why did you post this?

The headline sounds like a reasonable summary of the situation described.

Months ago, YouTube pointed me toward a video that recommended Substack as a platform for some hobby. I made a public comment pointing out that Substack was profiting from spreading Nazi ideology. The YouTuber replied, said something like “No way, they’re not really doing that, are they?”

Maybe I’m naive, but I expected a YouTuber to be more terminally online than I am, to have heard of the Substack Nazi problem already. I also expected a YouTuber to at least Google “Substack Nazis” or similar before replying to some internet nobody. But apparently, no.

A lot of the coverage of the Substack Nazi issue that I’ve seen has been, broadly speaking, social media material, including blog posts. Those of us who read such stuff (like me, maybe you too) probably have some incorrect intuitions about how well-disseminated the ideas we find that way really are. Having a mainstream source like the Guardian pick up the story may be useful even if it doesn’t say anything new to us.

Yo. Dawg.

Rolling back a new ballot initiative, even.

…a metric shit ton of evidence that could destroy your nice cushy life…

But it didn’t even happen, though.

To think some people will tell you privilege isn’t real.

I think it’s really strange that none of Epstein’s contacts have (to the best of my knowledge) said anything like:

“I can’t really make any excuses. He was charming. He invited me to these great parties, which had me rubbing shoulders with other interesting, famous people. I guess I was star-struck. I gave him the benefit of every doubt because I wanted to believe he was as good a guy as he seemed. I wanted to believe that lifestyle was as glamorous and available to me as it seemed. I was wrong. Maybe I ignored some red flags because I didn’t want to acknowledge them.”

I think something like this must be the story for many of them, and admitting it would be honest and relatable. But it would take a degree of self-awareness, self-reflection. I wonder if ambition and self-reflection are natural antagonists.

They put “TikTok” right into the headline, but the story says:

Caleb Chabolla heard about the trend of heating the squishy toy from a friend at school…

I’m sorry this kid got hurt, but cramming “TikTok” and “social media” into the headlines seems like engagement bait. There have always been trends, rumors, and dangerous dares, social media didn’t invent that stuff.

deleted by creator

Noun

terrorism (usually uncountable, plural terrorisms)

1. The use of unlawful violence against people or property to achieve political objectives.

Thanks, yes, I’ve got “Auto-updater” set to “disable,” but NPP still checks in with the mothership when it starts, and notifies the user when updates are available.

It’s not as if ICE is going to stop kidnapping people if they [the DOJ] run out of lawyers.

Staying on and trying to make the system work sounds like the most moral option to me. It also sounds fruitless.

Edit: This article doesn’t have a ton of detail, and it’s pretty hard for an outsider with no legal background (like me) to understand what the players involved are trying to do. These stories have some more details:

MPR News: ICE attorney to judge: ‘This job sucks’

The Independent: ‘This job sucks’: DOJ lawyer asks to be held in contempt so she can sleep after judge accuses ICE of blowing court orders

See also OP’s comment.

Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Le is described as a volunteer. I don’t know if that means she’s getting paid or not. She is working to get ICE to comply with court orders to release people. My guess is that if everyone in her position were to resign in protest, ICE would just ignore the courts completely, and wouldn’t release anyone at all anymore.

This is an attack, a deliberate stratagem, by the executive, on the justice system, and it sounds to me like Julie Le is caught up in that attack, not a perpetrator of it.

Traffic from certain targeted users was selectively redirected to attacker-controlled malicious update manifests.

I don’t want to sound dismissive, but at the same time, if you’re wondering, “Does this affect me and my computer?” the answer is almost certainly “no.” It’s scary anyway.

I would have guessed NPP had an option to disable check-for-updates every time it starts, but I couldn’t find one.

…the Department of Homeland Security brought its allegations to the public long before it could be tested in court, repeating claims of bounties up to $50,000.

So the DHS just wants everyone to be informed about some exciting new gig economy opportunities?

Sure, it may not work, because the feds haven’t been following the rules. It’s important to make it crystal-clear that they aren’t following the rules, anyway.