RE: https://mastodon.neometropolis.net/@QudsNen/117421221129461347

Imagine, if you will, if I gathered a bunch of cosplayers together, and we dressed like the western imagination of witches, with the wrongheaded insertion of Abrahamic demonology, so everyone thought the Horned God we were invoking by dancing around a fire was Milton's Satan, while simultaneously blocking everyone from getting to Mass at the Vatican because of our little jig meant to insult Christians.

(I pick Vatican both because I figure everyone knows where it is, and because of the innate symbology, which is almost identical across faiths.)

I imagine the world media would lose its collective mind if a coven of witches were blocking the Vatican.

And yet...a bunch of cosplayers are doing the same thing, at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and US tax dollars are paying for it, with up to $3000 a month in "income support" for unemployed Israelis. Texas families of the same size get $276 in snap assistance.

This is how the #GOP wants to spend your money.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@billbot/117415604503288695

The problem is this: #Federal grants allow states to *refuse the money*, and thereby refuse to implement the programs. See, for example, the #aca, #medicare subsidies, #covid payouts, the list of benefits the #GOP has refused to give its poorest citizens is legendary, and I posit, criminal.

So while I totally support CA Rep #Torres and her cosponsors, I put it to you, as a woman who has spent untold dollars to support local Texas teenagers who couldn't get abortions, where is the legislation that demands the GOP spend the money that #Congress allocates?

Hunger in a country where people have yachts inside their other yachts is a moral failure of society, of culture, of humanity. We cannot allow this to continue. Children are hungry. What the fuck is wrong with us? We are good people, being controlled by evil. It's time to let the good burn the darkness back to where it belongs.

#snap #HungerIsAMoralFailure #WeCanDoBetter #TaxBillionaires #EatTheRich

#Inktober Prompt: Rot. Seemed almost obvious. 🤣🤘🏼

#Trump is giving US Taxpayer dollars to Putin, to buy diesel. Putin. The one under sanctions? Yeah. That #Putin.

So…um, I’m pretty sure under war rules that #Ukraine can blow up any ships filled with diesel that are abrogating #UN #sanctions. (Not an expert on war)

What happens when the US is clearly breaking a treaty? I literally do not know what happens if Ukraine blows up these ships, but I think they should. Why is the US funding the enemy of our allies?

Is it time to cut off the USA from the civilized world?

Man, someday Trump is going to die, and while the angels sing, we’ll finally get to know what kompromat the kremlin has on diaper daddy.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-russia-diesel-midterms-12baccc7aade559bf329079b0548c9da

Note: Kinda double, something went weird when I was quoting someone, and now I can't see who it was, so apologies to them if I offended, it was unintentional!

💙Today, a fed court⚡sided with Common Cause & voters in their lawsuit against & the #DOJ, ruling the DOJ’s campaign to consolidate sensitive voter data violates voter privacy & illegally intrudes on states’ authority over #elections.

The court’s decision⚡protects eligible #voters’ freedom to cast a ballot w/o fear that their personal information will be misused, shared w./o authorization, or weaponized to challenge their eligibility.
-CREW
#USPol
https://www.citizensforethics.org/news/press-releases/federal-court-sides-with-common-cause-and-voters-ruling-doj-data-demands-violate-voter-privacy-states-election-authority/
https://www.citizensforethics.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/Common-Cause-v.-DOJ-Mem-Op-granting-SJ.pdf

In Margaret Hamilton's honor, you can actually play with the Apollo Guidance Computer, as ported into JS: https://svtsim.com/moonjs/agc.html

Fun story: When I was traveling home I wore my "Watch Herzog" t-shirt for travel day. It's got a giant picture of Werner's face on it.

This fucked up every single facial recognition program both the Mexican and US passport control areas to the point that agents for both countries had to pull me aside and verify my identity the old fashioned way.

So t-shirts with big faces on them don't work well with AI Facial recognition systems. Figured that would be interesting information around here.

This defense from the publisher of Asimov's, Analog, and F&SF is no defense at all. I'd hoped those of us who'd protested rights-grab contracts last year had caused a change in the way the company dealt with creators, but sadly, all three dream markets must still be unacceptable outlets for me. Sad.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@blogdiva/117408460313244772

I have long said we need to take a page from the French, who know how to protest and get shit done.

Look y’all, the GOP and Trump are already talking about martial law, seizing ballots, and generally not allowing a free election. You need to know that could happen. It’s unlikely, but possible.

Stock up on supplies. Be prepared to join a general strike. And remember the CIA already gave us an instruction manual. (And friend of 404 reformatted to be more legible than the 1940s typewriter)

https://www.404media.co/content/files/2025/02/simplesabotage.pdf

Out-of-context QOTD:

“listen, my mom didn’t raise a quitter but she did raise a complainer. So imma get it done but you’ll hear about it the whole time”

I've not had much luck convincing my joints to move on this day, and I can't get my braces on cause swelling, but when looking for inspiration for inktober, I often turn towards medieval manuscripts, because the art in them is just bonkers. Despite it not being relevant, I did feel it necessary to share.

So, while tomorrow will include today and tomorrow's prompts, today instead I give you; a sultry sturgeon atop a jousting helmet. The middle ages were wild, if the illustrations are anything to go by.

(edit alt image revision)

RE: https://infosec.exchange/@flyingpenguin/117406994153298391

Our city council got a theist in the last elections who has been pounding the desk to allow public invocations. I'll be sending him this article with a note that says "I own a lot of black, and am there for most important meetings." :) I'm already the town troublemaker, what with fighting to keep an arts and community budget and stopping the police from getting a tank.

(I wouldn't hail satan, but I'd have plenty of time to make up new rituals and gods, so no worries there. A new god every month. I could have such fun with this. Such fun.)

📻 NEW PODCAST: Gil Durán says explaining our politics without Thiel, Yarvin and the network state is like explaining 9/11 without Al-Qaeda. He joins me to talk tech fascism, crypto corruption, and the midterms.
https://america2.news/podcast-nerd-reich-redux-with-gil-duran/

I got a vaccine yesterday. Today I feel like I've been hit by a truck. Worth it, so I can be around people in a few weeks...but sheesh, the headache is real.

#inktober day 7: "PANIC!"

Solidarité avec les mouvements lycéens en France.

#Inktober Deadly Plants, or, Reading in the Herbarium

Oh America, I dunno how we’re gonna come back from this era of madness, but when we do, hoooboy, we owe a lot of people a lot of apologies. Can you imagine any other time in this nation’s history when the President could have been ridiculed so publicly and so well, and most Americans think “ yeah, that tracks.”

Utterly humiliating.

#trump #art #eu #parliament https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-humiliated-as-giant-golden-nude-statue-unveiled-at-parliament/

#EganJones is a credit rating agency. Their whole job is watching the #economy. I leave it to you to determine the severity of any economic report titled “It’s Over”, but I suggest the correct perspective may be to prepare for the coming crash of the long con we call the American economy.

TLDR; Al has advanced so far that the complete disruption of the economy is all but certain, and firms that sell expertise by the hour, senior talent included, are first in line. Expect compressed margins in professional services, lower returns to venture capital and short-term pressure on home prices as screen-based jobs are disrupted.

https://www.egan-jones.com/insight/its-over

It’s Banned Books Week.

Y’all, here, in the year of Our Bob 2026, the Yeehawdists and the Nerd Reich have teamed up to remove 12,000 titles from schools.

https://pen.org/report/book-bans-spotlight-2026/

Read banned books: https://pen.org/banned-books-list-2026/

Info from the American Library Association: https://www.ala.org/bbooks/banned

You can file open records requests for your school district. See what they’re up to. Fight them.

#bannedbooks #bannedbooksweek2026

#Inktober2026 #Day6 #Ogre #Inktober