For context on the remarkableness of this outcome…

Solomon “Sol” Wachtler (born April 29, 1930) is an American former jurist, Republican politician, attorney, and author from the state of New York. He served as Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals from 1985 to 1992. Wachtler’s most famous quote, made shortly after his appointment as Chief Judge, is that district attorneys could get grand juries to “indict a ham sandwich”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Wachtler

Red Letter Media’s final thoughts on the state of Star Wars were pretty insightful: It’s become a container with a very specific aesthetic that Disney can pile an infinite number of things into: multi-quadrant science fiction blockbusters, preschool cartoons, carnival rides, political dramas, kids adventures, whatever.

It’s since stopped being a finite thing anyone can love anymore. When something becomes everything, it loses distinctness. That distinctness, whatever it was, is what early fans originally fell in love with.

Of course, those original objects still exist, but you have to specify them. You’re an “original trilogy” fan or an Andor fan or the made-for-TV Ewok movies fan†, but saying you’re a Star Wars fan is basically meaningless now. And for people who proudly wore that mantle, through eyerolls and ridicule, that’s a genuine loss.

† Teek from Battle for Endor has a posse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_pension

As of 2019, members who participated in the congressional pension system are vested after five years of service.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Taylor_Greene

Elected in Dec 2020, sworn in January 3 2021. Re-elected Nov 2024, resigning effective January 5 2026, mere days after her pension eligibility kicked in.

She’s a fucking grifter. End of story.

It’s number 1.

She’s ridden the ride long enough to do speaking engagements and political commentary for as long as she can remain entertaining. Also book deals, but that depends if she can scare up a ghostwriter who’s willing to attach their name to her.

Ain’t no rule!

For context:

Half a dozen members of Congress who previously served in the military or intelligence community are urging service members and intelligence officials to disobey illegal orders that might be issued by President Donald Trump’s administration. Democratic lawmakers Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Sen. Mark Kelly, Rep. Jason Crow, Rep. Maggie Goodlander, Rep. Chris Deluzio and Rep. Chrissy Houlahan said the “threats to our Constitution” are coming “from right here at home,” and repeatedly urged the military and intelligence community to “refuse illegal orders.”

The video was posted on twitter, but I’m attaching it below.

Exactly. It’s a proven that will only show up at scale, and these little randomized studies will never demonstrate it.

Halloween, it is said, never gives up her dead when the gales of November come early.

I don’t know where the adorably precocious children in this screenshot are purported to come from. Every kid I’ve ever met who questions me about my gender has been an argumentative little shit that wants to make a point out of not believing me.

I have a better plan:

The way out of our present age of political violence is not scolding “we have to live here with one another,” at those who are not threatening anyone’s life, at those whose very existence supremacists refuse to accept. Rather the way out is standing between supremacists and their targets and telling them “no, you have to live with them, just like we live with you, and if you can’t do that, then you have a problem with us, too.” It’s turning to those who just aren’t comfortable with trans people and saying “we don’t negotiate about people’s rights over here, and if you want to see how hard we’ll fight for you against the billionaires and bosses who are robbing you blind, watch how hard we fight for them. If hating trans people is so important to you that you’re willing to get robbed to death to secure it, we aren’t the party for you.”

You know what? I think that message might just build a coalition.

https://www.the-reframe.com/eventually-youre-going-to-have-to-stand-for-something-2/

The only poor people at the Super Bowl are the ushers and concession vendors.

Smartphones are walled gardens. Build your applications for the web so they can be used with any device.

This is your casual reminder that Lemmy was built to support RSS. Just look for the RSS logo on the top of any community’s list of posts:

And for those pining for the old days of Google Reader, I have been a huge fan of Newsblur.

Bless you, Portland.

Degenerates only want one thing and it’s disgusting fucking.

At the very end of the article, the author finally explains the specific charge against Comey.

Comey, in his September 2020 testimony, told Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that he stood by prior testimony that he did not, as FBI director, authorize a leak of information to The Wall Street Journal for an October 2016 article that detailed a Justice Department probe of then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s email use.

Cruz told the Justice Department in a letter three months later that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe admitted knowing about and authorizing the leak.

McCabe insisted that Comey was aware of his decision to authorize the disclosure, while Comey “has denied this claim,” Cruz wrote.

“Mr. Comey and Mr. McCabe’s statements are irreconcilably contradictory,” Cruz wrote. “Mr. McCabe says that he told Mr. Comey of the leak and that Mr. Comey approved — effectively authorizing the leak after the fact. Mr. Comey, on the other hand, has said that he neither authorized the leak nor knew of Mr. McCabe’s involvement.”

“One of them is lying under oath — a federal crime,” Cruz wrote.

Righty-o then. So prove it.

Testing replies and edits…

Acceleration, temperature, body configuration (positioning), pain, balance and hunger are all related to touch in one way or another.

Time, however, is legit. Along with emotion. Maybe you could call the 6th sense cognition?

More extracts from that same podcast:

In each case, right up until the moment I received evidence to the contrary, all this misinformation, these supposed facts, felt true to me. I had believed them for decades and I had accepted them in part because they seemed to confirm all sorts of other ideas and opinions floating around in my mind. Plus they would have been great ways to illustrate complicated concepts, if not for the pesky fact that they were, in fact, not facts.

That’s one of the reasons why common misconceptions and false beliefs like these spread from conversation to conversation and survive from generation to generation and become anecdotal currency in our marketplace of ideas. They confirm our assumptions and validate our opinions and, thus, they raise few skeptical alarms. They make sense and they help us make sense of other things.

I have a song for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMoYgKO3dD4