Bester is by far one of the best characters in sci-fi, and some of Walter Koenig’s best work.

Yeah, it’s not technically impossible to stop web scrapers, but it’s difficult to have a lasting, effective solution. One easy way is to block their user-agent assuming the scraper uses an identifiable user-agent, but that can be easily circumvented. The also easy and somewhat more effective way is to block scrapers’ and caching services’ IP addresses, but that turns into a game of whack-a-mole. You could also have a paywall or login to view content and not approve a certain org, but that only will work for certain use cases, and that also is easy to circumvent. If stopping a single org’s scraping is the hill to die on, good luck.

That said, I’m all for fighting ICE, even if it’s futile. Just slowing them down and frustrating them is useful.

As an Illinoisan, Pritzker is the exception that proves the rule. He uses his money for good, and has been amazing for the state. He really shows that billionaires can do good but the vast majority choose not to.

So, with that said, I’m all for letting him lead with AOC and Bernie. He can really bankroll efforts.

No, you see, that’s illegal discrimination, but if someone says “No N*****” or “No Arabs,” well, that’s just free speech and perfectly fine for good, upstanding white American citizens to do. (very heavy /S if it’s not abundantly clear)

How stupid does he think we are?

Before or after destroying the Department of Education? The entire reason behind this is that uneducated people don’t know their rights or how the government works, so the GOP can run roughshod over our rights.

Because he conceded that it’s not within his power to dismantle a government department that was made via a law. In other words, he blinked on infringing on that core Article I power. That said, I don’t think it’s a huge win, and he will try again. But at least we are finding the frontiers of Republicans’ stomach for authoritarian behavior. It’s not great, but it’s something.

Don’t forget to say “pwease” and “tank you”! At this point, I’m shocked but not surprised that the Democrats are just rolling over.

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice […]

That was Martin Luther King Jr. talking about civil rights. It rings just as true today for trans people.

In some cases, sure I’ll grant it can be unfair for newly transitioned women, i.e. on hormones for less than a year. After that, any potential advantage is for a large part nullified (which is overly simplistic as a timeline but whatever). Also, let’s be real honest on just how many people this affects. The amount is so staggeringly small that even if we put aside that there is only a temporary advantage, there’s really not much of a problem, just a handful of individuals.

But, and this is vitally important to understand, sports are not a core, vital governmental interest and thus do not need to be legislated. To be very plain, games are not important to the functioning of society. Individual leagues can come up with their own policies if they feel it so necessary to exclude the small number of trans women who want to participate.

The entire “debate” just shows we are not a serious society. God forbid trans women want to exist and pursue their interests.

As for Gavin Newsome, this really shows he’s trying a bit too hard to start a presidential run with a theory of “let’s be Republican Lite.” That worked so well the last time.

Hiding behind “but they committed a crime!” is going to be used to justify all kinds of horrors.

Yep. Anything they don’t like will be criminalized. Then when there is an inevitable protest because of some overreach, the government will react by going to the media and vilifying the protests for supporting “hardened criminals.” It’s so transparent.

It just goes to show that legality and morality, while sometimes overlapping, are not the same.

I’ve been doing some thinking about this recently, and I think it comes from two places. One is the easily spotted malice toward workers and stepping on them (à la Elon). The other for managers and the like who are not straight up sociopaths is that a lot of these people have no meaning in their lives and have never really done anything they really believe in (or bleed for that matter). So, they try to derive meaning from their relatively boring, unimportant job, and try to get others into it like they are. They’re starved for camaraderie by the very job they’ve invested their entire lives in. It’s sad really.

I agree. Make them uncomfortable. Make them see how reviled they are.

Pete Hegseth is truly one of the weakest people in the country. I guess we now know that words really do hurt him. Just say “gay, trans, LGBT, and diversity” and he’ll probably go sit under his desk to suck on a bottle of Jack.

Hell, they probably used this as a time to do some quick stock buybacks on the cheap.

I’m not sure they’re all compromised. The ones who aren’t are just cowards and go along with everything even though they know it’s wrong.

Honestly, I don’t know which is worse, the compromised ones doing bad things to help their masters or the cowards who can’t muster enough courage to publicly call the first out and in so doing become accomplices.

Traitor.

And so begins the new isolation of the United States, the end of Pax Americana, and the end of American empire and hegemony. Hopefully, Europe can take over as the leaders of the free world and setters of norms.

Or ever again.

It will take severe work for anyone to trust the US ever again. It was hard enough after Trump the first time, but now American contrition will take much longer and require more. I’m talking like impeaching and removing a broad swath of this administration, rejoining international organizations (like the WHO, etc.), and joining others we hadn’t been in before (like the ICC).

American leadership is trashed for a generation at least, possibly forever.

This is a start, but there needs to be more and for longer. This first one is just to get our feet wet and get people into resisting. The second blackout should last a week. Amazon Blackout 2 should be 1-3 months, with Amazon Blackout 3 being of indefinite length. Same for Walmart.

If the world isn’t comfortable taking action by now

The sad fact of the matter is most Americans aren’t. So, we have to meet them where they are and start small and low-threat to get them comfortable.

Personally, I find a one day blackout super easy. I don’t buy a lot as is, and when I do, I go out of my way to not engage with big companies. I know companies don’t feel my actions, and I know they wouldn’t feel my actions if there were 100 of me doing this. So, we need to use this as an opportunity to get people on board as “baby’s first social action.” Get people comfortable with doing something so that bigger, more impactful actions can be taken down the line.

After the 28th, we need to then organize the next one and make it longer, say 3 days and ask that people get their friends to do it, too. It will take successive action with the awareness that this is all connected.