Customs agent: “I see that you just arrived from Russia. Did you meet with anyone under US sanctions? If so, who?”

Orban: “Yes. President Putin.”

Customs agent: “ummm okay…and what is the purpose of your visit to the United States?”

Orban: “To tell former president Trump about my visit with President Putin.”

Customs agent: “anything to declare?”

Orban: “no, just this priceless faberge egg that I’m holding for a friend.”

…is how I imagine it went.

You already tortured and destroyed the orb for liking other orbs, you can put your hands down now.

I think of government as a relatively recent adaptation for our some of our species’ less socially-harmonious impulses. Government makes formal our ability to gather in groups and come to a shared understanding, across diverse and often contradictory belief systems. Humans have always been really good at this, but modern governments and their accompanying bureaucracies take it to the next level. Sure we lose some efficiency, but that’s what happens when you’ve got massive populations.

I believe government is meant to take the place of the caretakers of old who would have been responsible for the well-being of the group. If you think of government as an extension of ourselves, the part that cares for the collective for the benefit of the individual, and vice versa, then it’s one of the most critical components of our survival as a species.

Ideally, government should provide everything that an individual cannot provide for themselves. If a person isn’t a builder, then government should provide a place to live. If a person isn’t a farmer, then government should provide enough food to survive on. If a person isn’t a doctor, then the government should provide medical care. And so on. All the essentials we need to live should be provided by the government, because the government is us.

Driftaway Coffee. I think they’re based in Brooklyn, but I have their subscription shipped to the west coast. They roast and ship on the same day, so I always get freshly roasted beans within a couple days of getting the shipment notification. They focus on sustainability, appear to pay their growers way more than the average, and many of the farms they buy from are women-owned and operated. Been super happy with the quality, and they provide little info-cards with each bag giving details about the region, growers, and tasting notes, so I’ve built up a cool little history/collection so I can always look back and remember a bean I particularly liked.

Pending Train is pretty darn close to what you’re describing. I only got through the first episode, it falls prey to a lot of annoying little tropes, but it’s a cool concept for sure.

Thank you! Super helpful.

My selfish question: is my VPN still secure? This wouldn’t impact the fact that the traffic itself is encrypted, right? They’d just be able to see that my connection is behind a VPN which is communicating with other servers? Previously it was just my ISP that could know that, now the DTRA can too?

This still seems like a big security risk, though I’m not entirely sure how.

Ah thank you! I hadn’t seen this.

Seems like they’re both staying pretty quiet about what happened at The Intercept, but it seems like something went down over there to precipitate their best journalists quitting…I’m very curious to find out what happened. I hope they go public about it soon.

Huh, their approach is arguably quite defamatory. How about that.

His sister (who is dead now by the way), was a federal judge.

That thumbnail of Lina Khan perfectly encapsulates how I’m feeling about the government lately.

It’s very weird to me that it’s republicans who are more proud than democrats. Republicans are the ones who say the country is a crime-filled shithole full of woke gay black trans people who care about humans rights, and they think those are bad things. So what are they proud of?

I’m proud that we have all those types of people and more, and that we’ve made some progress in getting them a semblance of equality, but I’m ashamed that we’re still not quite there yet and even the pittances we’ve won have taken so freaking long and have been met with such resistance from the right.

This is why, despite the fact that many of us also dislike Kamala, she should be the only name in the running, and he shouldn’t wait until the convection to step aside. He should resign now, let Kamala be president for a few months, and then she can run in the election as an incumbent with full party support. No one else can legally claim his delegates or even use the campaign’s money, only she can do that if he resigns. This would be the only real way to force the DCCC into not shitting the bed, which is their default setting. Any other approach, in my opinion, is a recipe for mayhem at the convention, and yeah, an inevitable Trump presidency.

Ah yeah that makes sense. Though in the past I’ve gotten in trouble for trying to say who is and who isn’t a “real” Jew (many an argument about Messianic Jews over the dinner table). But yeah, anyone who supports genocide doesn’t deserve my respect, so I’m okay calling them not real Jews.

Oh for fuck’s sake: Clarence Thomas takes aim at a new target: Eliminating OSHA

This made me laugh way harder than it should have, but then I realized I was actually crying.

real Jews would never, ever, encourage this sort of behavior.

I really wish that were true. I’m a Jew, and I am fully against this genocide and Israel’s hypocrisy in general, but Israel is full of real Jews who absolutely encourage this behavior. It’s sad, demoralizing, and shameful, especially for us “normal” Jews who see it for the evil that it is, but I’m not sure enough of the world realizes how normalized this kind of violence is in Israel. I’ve spent a lot of time there, and the vapid, bloodthirsty hatred for Palestinians is absolutely real, and many many more Jews than you or I would like to believe support these atrocities.

I’m a descendant of Holocaust survivors, with a sizable contingent of family that escaped Europe to Israel, and I frankly won’t be talking to any of them ever again now that I know they happily support genocide.

This is great! I’ve been wanting a 4K Blu-ray of this for a while. We watched this movie when we studied critical theory in high school. My teacher used it to explain existentialism. Has been a favorite ever since.

Ha! I never thought about the underground mansion hideaway. Good stuff. You’re right, they’d be pretty much unstoppable and unbeatable.