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The recently appointed Department of Defense head Pete Hegseth (formerly Fox News pundit, perpetually soused creepy uncle, and current group chat leaker of classified intel) banned images of the Enola Gay from the Pentagon’s website for the offense of “DEI” language. In keeping with the far right’s stated war on anything vaguely resembling diversity, equity and inclusion, even historical photos are up for cancellation. When a literal weapon of mass destruction is censored for being a bit fruity under the Trump administration’s war against inconvenient truths, what exactly is left untouched?

This is clown show stuff, but the stakes are far from funny. While some might be hesitant to compare the current administration to the very worst history has to offer, we can at least all agree that they are dyed-in-the-wool grammar Nazis. Policing language has been the objective of the MAGA culture war long before Project 2025’s debut—the wave of book bans orchestrated by astroturf movements like Moms for Liberty, and Florida’s 2022 Don’t Say Gay bill have already had a profound effect in the arena of free speech and freedom of expression (despite the far right’s long tradition of doublespeak performative free-speech martyrdom to the contrary). Don’t Say Gay ostensibly targeted K-3 education, but LGBT+ content at all levels of education (and beyond) was either quietly censored or entirely preempted in practice. The results were not just a war on so-called ideology, or words alone—but on reality and essential freedoms.

Now, words as innocuous and important as racism, climate change, hate speech, prejudice, mental health, and inequality are targeted as subversive. Entire concepts are being vanished from government institutions, scrubbed not only from descriptions but from metadata, search indexes, and archival frameworks.

If you don’t name a thing, does it exist?

ah yes my favorite literary device

I always assumed that’s why Sulu was so happy on the Shore Leave planet, he finally found Chekov’s Gun

I spotted a reply to one of my posts:

And my knee-jerk response was "no, you should hear my friends talk about their lives--"

And it made me remember something.

Back in high school, my IB class did a lock-in-- where the group of students gets locked into one part of the school overnight on a weekend-- and after junk food and video games lost their appeal, we got to talking.

Only I didn't really know anything about almost any of them. They were all friendly enough, but I kept to myself for the most part, so we didn't have much to talk about once standard small talk ran out.

So I asked one of the other people sitting with me: "what's your story?"

Your life story.

And he told me. Sixteen years or so condensed into maybe a half hour. And it was the most fascinating life I could have imagined: the places he'd been, the things he'd done, the experiences that defined him. It boggled my mind.

When he finished and turned the question around to me, I thought mine sounded really boring in comparison, but he listened open-mouthed to the entire thing. Other kids were gathering around us by now, listening in. And when I finished mine, I turned to another one of them and asked the question to them.

And just like before, my mind was blown. A completely different life, completely different focal points, defining experiences, goals the likes of which were deserving of an anime. And the same happened with the next person we asked, and the next.

By the time each one of us had finished telling their story, it was time to go home for the morning. The video games had been abandoned hours ago. None of us had slept. We were too caught up in each other's lives.

All of which is to say:

Thank you. I do lead a very interesting life.

So do you.

Bro absolutely COOKED with this.

If you ever hear the phrase "fascism is aesthetics as politics," that's what this post is talking about.

It's not about being tough on crime, because the absolute toughest most brutal measure you could take against "crime" as a social problem is to alleviate poverty, and increase access to education, healthcare and social mobility.

It's about performing "tough on crime" as an aesthetic by enacting violence against a prop, i.e. minorities and the impoverished, who are fetishized and objectified to represent "crime." They are brutalized as punishment for crime, but never with the purpose of alleviating the problem of crime.

This is why a lot of conservatives and other right wingers can get straight up angry when you suggest things like reform or social measures to reduce crime. They don't want crime to be reduced, they want an eternal war against "crime" because it provides an arena for the righteous to demonstrate virtue by brutalizing their enemies.

I made a transparent green version of that old geocities dragon vibe gif I was searching for a while back, and I figured while I was there I might as well export a bunch of other colours in case people would like to use them! The last two are solid white and solid black, in case your theme makes either of them invisible lol

Edit Aug. 13th ‘23: Updating original post with all the existing colours! To see the latest, check out the free stuff page on my Neocities :3

DRAGONS LOCATED

This is just very funny to me.

Not even his robot child likes him

Really shows how pathetic US "journalists" are when every other paragraph is "I will not publish this part because it could theoretically threaten our Blessed and Holy CIA officers and Da Troops." Then ends with "I removed myself from the chat once I knew it was actually real and politely informed the imperialist morons of their mistake." If this guy got the Watergate Tapes, he'd have sent them back with a bow and a gift card.

Don't let Republicans distract you with gimmicky culture war bills. Republican policies are making Americans' lives shorter and worse in every conceivable way.

Thank you Derek, menswear guide, for reminding me why paying more to be free advertising for brands is dumb.

via @bobafett

Calling scam victims stupid, much like cult members, serves to do nothing but make you feel superior, blame victims for the wrongs done to them, and in turn actually makes you more vulnerable to scams (and cults, and so on). "Look at these people! Morons! I could never be one of them because I am smart, unlike these people who fell for them because they are stupid. It is not about vulnerability and luck, both of which are factors that could affect me, it is all simply a matter of in-born intelligence, which is why I, a better human, don't have to worry about falling for them."

And boom, you have already let your guard down - you would never fall for a scam (or cult, etc.) so you can safely click on that link or read that pamphlet because if it was a scam you'd have identified it as such immediately, because you are smart. You don't need to stop and question. You're too smart. And, really, if they didn't want to get scammed they shouldn't have gone out dressed like that.

We're all potential victims. Every single one of us has been at one point or another been at vulnerable to a scammer, or a pickpocket, or any other number of external force trying to harm you for their own benefit. Blaming the victims feels good but it doesn't help shit in the long run.