"Start a blog," they said. "It'll be fun," they said.
Now here I am 13 years later, staying up late every night to round up links about the fascist goings-on in my country.
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Links not related to the antichrist:
1. How the House’s requirement to prove US citizenship could affect the ability to register to vote (April 11) !!!! The SAVE Act has passed the House and will go to the Senate. Contact your senators and tell them to vote against this!!!!!!! This could take away my right to vote. I'm already registered from previous years, and supposedly these new requirements would just be for new registrations- but states sometimes remove people from the voting rolls, who would then have to re-register. *IN PERSON* Which I cannot do since I'm living in China.
2. AI-Generated Slop Is Already In Your Public Library (February 4, via) "The book, which consists mostly of recipes and includes a disclaimer that the author and publisher 'are not experts in the discussed topics,' didn’t include any dangerous information as far as I could tell, but appears to be AI-generated based on its stilted prose and formatting, consisting of summaries broken up with bolded subheadings common in outputs from LLMs like ChatGPT."
3. Congestion Pricing is a Policy Miracle (March 20, via) "First and foremost, congestion pricing has been stunningly effective at reducing traffic in Manhattan and the bridges/tunnels entering the city."
4. This wild new instrument brings a dinosaur back to life (March 10, via) "The instrument, which takes the form of an accurate, life-sized dinosaur skull, allows human musicians to recreate possible dinosaur vocalizations by blowing into a mouthpiece." This is so cool! But, we shouldn't understand this as "this *is* what dinosaurs sounded like"- instead, this is a plausible reconstruction of what this dinosaur sounded like. At many points in the process there's some guesswork.
5. 17 Montana Republicans Cross Party Lines, Defeat Anti-Trans Bill After Nonbinary Rep's Speech (April 9) "It makes no exception for care obtained legally out of state—simply bringing prescribed medication across state lines could render a Montana parent a felon. The bill also does not limit enforcement to Montana residents; even a parent visiting Glacier National Park or Yellowstone with their transgender child could face felony charges for carrying estrogen, testosterone, or puberty blockers."
6. Trans Athletes: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) (April 7) "It is not just about denying trans women the right to play. It's about denying them the right to exist."
7. 23andMe Bankrupt! Should You Delete Your Genetic Data? (April 2)
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Links related to the antichrist:
1. Shakedown, breakdown, takedown (April 7) "This is, as numerous observers have said, no different than if you refused to buy anything at the supermarket until the supermarket agreed to buy an equal or greater number of things from you."
2. Deporting veterans betrays America’s promise (April 7, via) "Like many other deported veterans, I was stripped of my home, family, and the nation I swore an oath to defend. I spent over a decade south of the border, advocating for other deported veterans while enduring the pain of being cast aside by the country I once served."
3. ‘A Path of Perfect Lawlessness’ (April 7) "The Supreme Court is about to decide whether the Trump administration can exile Americans to a gulag overseas and then leave them there."
4. The She Made Him Do It Theory of Everything (February 26, via) "Behind these stories is the assumption that some people matter more than other people, and that we who matter less have to pander to those who matter more – conservatives when they are imagined as straight, as white, as male, as rural, as salt of the earth, as the real Americans, unlike us ethnic/ immigrant/ urban/ non-male/ non-straight people."
5. Attorney representing a student protester detained by federal immigration agents (April 9) "And it's setting a terrifying precedent if government agents can target a lawyer at the border. What's stopping them from doing it to anyone who dares to speak out?"
6. 'We love them': Small N.Y. town embraces a family freed from immigration detention (April 8) This is great news! But... what now? This family is still undocumented (as far as I know), and ICE knows where they live. I'm confused about how they've been released, if they're undocumented. It's great news, but I'm still worried about them, and about all the other immigrants in the US...
7. AP wins reinstatement to White House events after judge rules government can’t bar its journalists (April 9) "'For anyone who thinks The Associated Press’ lawsuit against President Trump’s White House is about the name of a body of water, think bigger,' Julie Pace, the AP’s executive editor, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. 'It’s really about whether the government can control what you say.'"
8. Supreme Court says Trump officials should help return wrongly deported Maryland man (April 10) Good news! But also, I fully expect these MAGAs to come up with all kinds of excuses for why they "can't."
9. Homeland Security agents attempted to enter 2 LAUSD schools. Here's what families should know (April 10) "The principals of each school denied the agents entry and contacted the district’s legal department."
10. Utah colleges confirm dozens of international student visas terminated (April 9)
And: Visas revoked for students, graduates at multiple Texas universities amid deportation efforts (April 10)