Show newer
ABrockwell boosted
ABrockwell boosted

1865: The 13th Amendment codifies prison slavery, so racists passed vagrancy laws to criminalize people on the street—forcing many formerly enslaved people back into prison slave labor.

2024: SCOTUS criminalizes homelessness, forcing people on the street into prison slave labor.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — the U.S. Supreme Court has been the single biggest blockade to progress and justice in America. They’re proving it again this session.

ABrockwell boosted

Trump must step aside as the Republican nominee.

Trump called war dead losers and suckers. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.

Trump is an adjudicated rapist. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.

Trump has been convicted on 34 felony charges. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.

Trump is charged with inciting an insurrection for trying to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.

Trump willfully retained our most guarded secrets and obstructed the government’s efforts to get them back. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.

A jury has found Trump liable for $454M in disgorgement for fraud. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.

Trump’s business has been convicted on 17 felony counts of tax fraud. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.

-From A.G. at MSW Media

#2024Election #election #US #election2024 #vote #EU

ABrockwell boosted

The Gish gallop is a bad faith rhetorical technique that overwhelms opponents with numerous false weak arguments.

Wikipedia can be a starting point for ideas on how to counter it.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gal

#election #debate #rhetoric

ABrockwell boosted

"OMG, you guys! Biden was off last night. Some swing state people who don’t vote anyway are going to switch to Hitler! He looks stronger! Abandon ship!!!”

Yes, that is how bad some of you sound.

No longer debating this or being anyone’s personal anxiety dumping ground. Pick yourselves up and move on.

ABrockwell boosted

"Note that no one is demanding that Trump step down due to his making a mockery of the 'debate' with his lying, or because of the disgrace he brings to America’s global reputation by being a convicted felon and having staged an insurrection.

Instead, it’s Biden who is supposed to step down."

~ Ruth Ben-Ghiat

#Biden #Trump #media
/17

lucid.substack.com/p/a-debate-

Show thread
ABrockwell boosted

An eggcorn is when someone mistakes a word for a different word, often in the context of an idiom. It comes from the surprisingly common mistake of thinking the word "acorn" is actually "eggcorn".

Anyway, my favourite eggcorns are the ones that imply the existence of a powerful and mysterious animal, such as "and their elk" (instead of "and their ilk"), "from the gecko" (instead of "from the get-go'), and, most recently, "locust of control" (instead of "locus of control"). #linguistics

ABrockwell boosted

I have no idea why this is but #Mastodon feels like one of the sanest places in the world right now.

Still very grateful to have found it.

ABrockwell boosted

I just recently realized that what I truly hate about LLMs is that it devalues language. I love language, I love using it very intentionally, I love how different people wield and work language differently. A well forged phrase can cut right to the soul. Language is literally magic. It can do things where man and machine all fail.

But now with the press of a button you can get sugary pink language goo in any shape you like. And this is sold as an equal replacement to real human language. The insult! The depravity!

I think it might say something about how far language is already devalued. We live in a morass of content marketing and business process documentation and terms and conditions and propaganda and spam. All soulless language that nobody asks for but that people are compelled to create. We can't imagine not creating such language goo. And so we're grateful for the pink goo machine.

You know those stories about how there was once magic in the world but it was lost? This is it. This is how it happens.

ABrockwell boosted

There is an American presidential candidate touring the country, talking about "criminal immigrants".

Also, that presidential candidate is from an immigrant family himself, and is himself a convicted felon.

ABrockwell boosted
ABrockwell boosted

"Something has changed for me in the Trump era. I struggle more than I once did to wall off a person’s character from their politics when their politics is binding them to an unusually—and I would say undeniably—destructive person. The lies that MAGA world parrots are so manifestly untrue, and the Trump ethic is so manifestly cruel, that they are difficult to set aside."

~ Peter Wehner

#Trump #MAGA #lies #morality #ethics
/1

theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/

ABrockwell boosted

Tesla CyberTruck: Solving problems that aren’t problems since 2024. Yep, no question about it, Elon's worth every penny of his $56-billion pay package,

ABrockwell boosted

"if you can't do, teach" is bs. effective teaching often requires mastery of a given subject beyond what's needed to "do"

the actual thing going on in the world is: "if you can't do, micromanage those who can"

ABrockwell boosted
ABrockwell boosted

"Microsoft's secret sauce is impunity. The PC companies that bundle Windows with their hardware are held blameless for the glaring defects in Windows. The IT managers who buy company-wide Windows licenses are likewise insulated from the rage of the workers who have to use Windows and other Microsoft products."

@pluralistic nails it.

pluralistic.net/2024/06/14/pat

ABrockwell boosted

I’m no longer using the term “Republican Party” as it suggests that organization is a legitimate participant in U.S. constitutional democracy. I shall be referring to it as the Republican crime syndicate, as it is an organization wedded to giving a convicted felon dictatorial power.

ABrockwell boosted
ABrockwell boosted

Maybe someday America will enforce gun laws on everyone as strictly as they've been enforced on Hunter Biden.

ABrockwell boosted

We in the #media have failed by becoming inured to Trump’s verbal incontinence — not just the rapid-fire #lies & #revenge-seeking threats, but also the frightening glimpses into a mind that is, evidently, #unwell. In 2016, #Trump said outrageous things at his campaign rallies to be entertaining. In 2024, his tangents raise serious questions about his #MentalFitness.

#Unfit #Demented #MalignantNarcissist #Deranged #BidenHarris2024

Show thread
Show older
Qoto Mastodon

QOTO: Question Others to Teach Ourselves
An inclusive, Academic Freedom, instance
All cultures welcome.
Hate speech and harassment strictly forbidden.