https://www.thedailybeast.com/yes-it-is-a-police-state-and-yes-you-can-do-something/

«Which raises the question, what is to be done? Can anything be done? In the short term, the answer must be to use what tools remain to fight back—even at the risk of becoming the targets of the next wave of retribution. Use the courts. Speak out. Take to the streets. Record the actions of the administration’s thugs and share the videos of what is happening. Work hard to try to maintain enough of democracy to regain some control of some aspects of our government as soon as possible.

And when that control is achieved, do not make the mistake of the last administration, of pundits or experts who took this threat too lightly. There must be consequences. Those who seized and warped and debased our system must pay a price for it. The illegality of their actions must be met with real penalties or they will take it as acceptance of such tactics and the American experiment in democracy will be permanently over.

Isn’t that just another form of retribution, you might ask? But the answer is no. There is another word for it if we do what is right in a way that is consistent with our laws and our true national interests. And that is justice.»

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/anti-zionism-among-jews#google_vignette

I like this position, from a “theological” viewpoint (as a Christian) (it’s too bad we don’t have a better word than that in common usage for this mode of thinking):

«Before the inception of Herzl’s Political Zionism, the Reform movement opposed Zionism on theological grounds. Wiener Cohen explains:

According to Reform theology, Judaism was a religion with a universal message. The mission of the Jews, the bearers of this message, was to propagate the universal religion of the prophets throughout the world. Dispersion was, therefore, a vital condition in Reform thinking, and even the Messianic era, which was envisioned as the realization of the prophetic ethics as taught by the Jews, precluded the traditional belief of a mass return to Palestine.
In 1845, the Frankfurt Conference eliminated references to a return to Palestine and a Jewish state from prayers. American Reform Jews adopted the European attitudes; hence, the movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis, organized in 1889 and led by Isaac M. Wise, opposed Zionism. At its 1885 conference in Pittsburgh, the organization declared, “We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine, nor a sacrificial worship under the sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state.”

In 1917, after Political Zionism had taken root, the Conference issued a resolution saying, “We look with disfavor upon the new doctrine of political Jewish nationalism, which finds the criterion of Jewish loyalty in anything other than loyalty to Israel’s God and Israel’s religious mission.”

Sounding much like the American Council for Judaism today, early Reform leaders worried that “Zionism would endanger their position as loyal Americans,” according to Wiener Cohen.

In response to the San Remo Declaration reaffirming the Balfour Declaration, Hebrew Union College, the American Reform movement’s rabbinical seminary, issued a statement that said:

We declare that no one land, Palestine or any other, can be called “the national home for the Jews,” as has been done by the Supreme Council. Each land, whereof Jews are loyal citizens, is the national home for those Jews. Palestine is not our national home, since we are not now and never expect to be citizens of that land.»

https://apnews.com/article/texas-redistricting-democrats-police-california-3459806da6c593d5ffcbe6891551fd7e

«A Texas Democrat opted to stay in the state House chamber overnight and into Tuesday rather than allow a law enforcement officer to shadow her while Republicans try to prevent further delays to redrawing congressional maps that President Donald Trump wants.»

Amazing. I can’t believe what Republicans are willing to do (I can totally believe what Republicans are willing to do).

I would love a good explanation for why the Dems came back. I bet they could have found funding.

Meh. Purportedly a mixture of bourbon, rye, and scotch, at $70/bottle. Sounds like an abomination to me.

Well… flavorful, but the smokiness translates to new leather. My preference is old leather.

Regardless of the “age” of the “leather”: not worth the price. Even on sale. Past the point of diminishing returns, for sure.

Yay!

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/15/technology/media-matters-ftc-musk-injunction.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ek8.eGmL.vKu-Yy46rOKM&smid=url-share (gift)

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/15/texas-abbott-second-special-session-redistricting-00511787

«Abbott’s proclamation was largely the same as the first one, which lays out 19 agenda items, including redistricting and disaster relief for Central Texas flood victims.»

We, in North Carolina, are familiar with this mix of bald political power grab and disaster relief.

“rural Orange County honky tonk The Kraken.” https://www.newsobserver.com/living/food-drink/article311625813.html#:~:text=rural%20Orange%20County%20honky%20tonk%20The%20Kraken.

Holy shit.

Yes, I know “best dive bars in the nation” is stupid, but, still.

https://huckberry.com/journal/posts/50-best-dive-bars-in-america

I had a bit of a realization. Maybe this is specific to a particular person (or type of), and not generalizable, but here it is:

People use the same reasoning about AI as they do vampires.

I have a friend like this. He’s a (-n otherwise) smart guy, a Ph.D.-holder (in a STEM field but not computer science) and occasional tabletop role-playing gamer (swords and sorcery as opposed to lazers and Science!).

But when we talk about AI (I’m a computer science guy, interested in AI back in the days of the AI Winter of the 1980s and super-duper cynical about all of it now), he’s basically perpetuating myth.

He doesn’t understand the issues and he is locked in hard to the mythology of computers that make decisions and think. Like… HARD. To be completely fair, this “decision-making capability” (yes, air quotes) of computers is what initially attracted me, when I was in the eighth grade, but I quickly (almost immediately?) realized that computer programs were ways of encoding known algorithms and processes, as opposed to granting computers the ability to *think*, like Prometheus stealing fire for humanity.

And when we talk, he speaks of “algorithms” and “what if computers <your-least-favorite-anthropomorphic-thing-here>?” and so on and so forth.

And it’s like talking about vampires.

“What if there was a vampire that could maybe acquire some partial immunity to sunlight?”

“What if there was a vampire that was essentially noble at heart and didn’t really want to kill humans but was cursed to require human blood to survive?”

“How could vampires actually exist in real life? Maybe it’s a virus that they catch that re-engineers their bone and muscle and creates a compulsion, like those ants that are compelled by fungus to climb to the top of a tree.”

It’s all this deep thought and conversation based on *myth and lore.*

I mean… I’m a (sci-fi) TTRPGer myself (or I wish I could be, like in the days of my youth, if I could find partners who weren’t, um… marginal) and I love the idea of throwing a micro-organism-driven vampire into the campaign (don’t tell, I want it to be a surprise), but… I don’t walk around in real life with garlic and crucifixes.

But we humans, we need our mythologies. (What’s mine? Hmmm….) So, here we are.

“Yes, I know, John, AI is just stringing words together, but what if there was some emergent unplanned behavior arising from that algorithm? After all, we’re just neurons firing, so why couldn’t a computer running a neural net achieve self-awareness?”

I’d grind my teeth harder, but I haven’t been flossing for years and the bone beneath my gums has receded, so I’d wind up just snapping one off. So, I just have to breathe deep and try to zen out.

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/08/12/attorney-general-ken-paxton-beto-orourke-texas/

«Paxton sued O’Rourke and his political group, Powered by People, last week, arguing that the group was deceptively fundraising for and illegally supporting Texas Democrats’ walkout.»

Haven’t read this story yet, but I want to say: I SPECIFICALLY looked them up so I could SPECIFICALLY send money to support the Texas House Dems, Ken Paxton, you stupid fuck. No deception required.

Sorry to be using that language, but honestly.

---

Update, not 30 seconds later:

«ABC13 has confirmed with multiple sources that House Democrats will return to Texas.

Eyewitness News has not confirmed the date, but we do know that Democrats believe they’ve accomplished their mission by killing the first special session and by raising national awareness about the mid-decade redistricting effort.»

https://abc13.com/post/texas-house-democrats-return-home-second-special-session-abc13-sources-confirm/17515302/

Ok, Texas Dems, now I’m a little pissed. The money I sent you is wasted? Can you use it to pay your bills? Was it a waste, since you’re folding? Would it have been better spent on Jordan Wood in Maine?

Here’s another org comfortable folks in the Research Triangle (or anywhere, really) can write checks for: https://refugeecommunitypartnership.org/

They are a community of refugees (mostly Burmese, Hispanic, Afghan, Arab, and Congolese, but with a smattering of others) that originally started as a mutual-aid network. They remain community-led (as opposed to white-savior-led), but, ya know, money makes the world go ’round….