iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

And considering that Israel, the Palestinian territories, Syria, and Burma/Myanmar were all on my list as well...yikes

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I did a full semester of writing up basic fact sheet overviews of every country in Asia (minus a couple contested ones), which did not require me to consume any visual content and also has made me deliberately avoid any news coming out of Afghanistan all the same. That was my most brutal write up

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I was not actually especially affected by rape cases. Oh I was angry and scared, but in a very abstract sense. I can barely stand basic news stories anymore. I've dreamt of mass shootings, which I never did when I was in school as either a student or as an educator. My brain was affected by it all!

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Michael Paulauski♨️ @mike10010100.com · 08/10/2026

Notably, after 6 1/2 years of obtaining two degrees where consuming some pretty brutal content was required (thankfully, not wholly or even mostly digital for me), I am not fine. I thought I was, and I do better than many. But I have visceral reactions to the nees that I did not have before.

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The thing about this apology is that it focuses on phrasing, gives a "but", and doesn't address the fact that she *keeps doing this* and has done so consistently over the last few *years*. Eventually there's a pattern established!

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Vibecession Forever @ghazelleberner.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I get that we all don’t like to discuss this and people will tell me I’m being Woke 1 or whatever, but like, how can you say stuff like this and still have a job? This is outright support for terrorism.

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Vibecession Forever @ghazelleberner.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

She is an antisemite. There’s not much more to say.

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I Nied braaaaiiiiins 🧟 @nied.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

"I'm sorry I said genocidal things, but in my defense, I have chosen a media diet that made me genocidal" is not actually an apology honestly.

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His Bark Materials🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🌌 @oneiriccanid.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

One thing that also irritates me is pretending there's been no moves towards criminal justice reform in the last 30 years. Like my siblings in posting, we used to arrest people who didn't pay their child support.

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When challenged, her entire argument for this is that Clinton signed the 1994 Crime Bill. Nothing Dems have done in the last 30-odd years. It’s absurdly bad faith but what’s she gonna do? Not lie to tens of thousands of people in an election year?

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I'm also mostly open to being persuaded that only the federal government should have the power to perform executions, and it's not a power individual states should be able to retain.

ArgellaStone @argellastone.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

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The irony is there is very much a Beltway establishment and they've always loathed the Clintons for being upjumped provincials, and they figured out the best way to attack them was to convince the other upjumped provincials that they were the Beltway establishment.

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I can be persuaded and have mostly been persuaded that it should not be used for anything short of terrorism and treason, even if there are particular capital murder cases that test me. I've discovered over the years I'm not interested in budging on the first two.

There are parts of my upbringing I have tried to overcome because it's not great. I've never been able to commit myself to "no death penalty" because I simply don't believe locking no shit terrorists in prison neutralizes the danger and I never will.

ArgellaStone @argellastone.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I distinctly remember people telling those people that it wouldn't work and was fucking stupid. Plenty of "nuh uhs" back for something they would've screamed at if it had been, for example, Newsom.

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It's insane that we're on year ten of people thinking they can win something by kissing up to Trump and it backfiring every single time.

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ArgellaStone @argellastone.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

time.com/article/2026... I'm old enough to remember when Mamdani's lovey-dovey photo ops with Trump were defended on the grounds that they'd keep ICE out of NYC. How'd that work out?

time.com

Mamdani Demands Trump End ICE Operations in New York After Shooting

The response to the incident tests the friendship between the New York mayor and the President.

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tmbhmltn.bsky.social @tmbhmltn.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The sort of fun part about not being universally opposed to the death penalty because no, actually, I don't think the dude who shot up a Black church in Charleston or the dude who shot up a synagogue should remain alive, is posts like this make me roll my eyes out of my skull

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I posted a little while back that no one ever talks about this but I really wonder if people just didn’t see this or store it in their memory

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I had a roommate who's specialization didn't involve atrocity footage, but does require consuming radicalizing content. She had regular external check ins as well as self check ins

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Like sorry but I had the good sense to not watch war footage or even consume especially gruesome fictional content when I was reading Ida B Wells's essays on lynching

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ike, son of mike @i-bresnick.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

As someone who has an international relations master's and a political science bachelor's, it's the least sympathetic argument imaginable, especially when experts have been explicitly stating over and over to not mainline war footage since at least the war in Ukraine.

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This shit is not happening to you. You are choosing to lose your minds and abandon all perspective. You selfish pricks.

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ike, son of mike @i-bresnick.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

One thing I was unpleasant surprised to discover at my alma mater (and since have gotten used to) is how much a rather lot of leftists do not believe in any form of power or influence that isn't militaristic in nature.

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It is just another of the compounding tragedies that unfolds from the criminal acts on 10/7 and Israel's criminal response thereto. I am not surprised that Israelis and Palestinians and even Gulf state Arabs are blinded by vengeance but if you're a random internet leftist you have no excuse.

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ike, son of mike @i-bresnick.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I am almost shocked it needs to be explained, but with normalization derailed, Gulf states have exactly as much leverage and influence over the Israeli public and policies as they had before normalization began: none. With normalized ties, they have more than none.

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ike, son of mike @i-bresnick.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

It is actually bad for Palestinians that Hamas disrupted Israeli-Arab normalization, and the way you can tell is that Hamas, who does not actually give a shit about Palestinians, launched the 10/7 attack specifically to do so and thereby retain power over Palestinians. It is tragedy compounded!

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 09/10/2026

Ossoff says that Mike Collins has "hired half the Third Reich to staff your congressional office"

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Vibecession Forever @ghazelleberner.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

He is 100% spot on correct. Best answer to this question I’ve heard from a politician.

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Tbh I've basically retreated back into the closet because I refuse to deal with any of it and the dating scene here is atrocious all around, anyway.

Vituperative Erb @vituperativeerb.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

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Fantasizing about Republicans winning in 2028 is just unbelievable loser shit

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ArgellaStone @argellastone.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Every single time the wretched, craven, depraved, spineless entities we call the press corpse tries to lie on his behalf, insisting that was taken out of context and didn't mean it like that, the very next day he doubles down even harder to say no, he *did* in fact mean it like that.

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*rubs temples* these people are ridiculous. The mayor of NYC has no responsibility for foreign policy. I'd normally think it's funny that he's getting back what he encouraged with his "arresting Netanyahu" BS, but honestly this is just irksome

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Honestly if it's not Japanese or Korean made and it's not a Corvette, I probably don't want anything to do with it personally (even if I may otherwise admire it)

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And if I ever get a Chevy Malibu, know that it was because my car died and it cost $500 or less, cause that's the only circumstance in which I would have one of those pieces of crap

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My dead last is anything German. I hate BMWs, Mercedes, and Volkswagens. Especially BMWs. I always hear about those fuckers breaking and the parts are outrageous. Just get a Lexus if you have money to blow I swear

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Tbh I'm a Toyota girly with a slight bias against Mazdas because an ex friend' Mazda was an absolute piece of shit, but the fact that they never really got rid of physical buttons makes them rank higher up than a lot of other possibilities

(I'm even willing to grant them that they might even be in unusually uncomfortable situations in those cities even with twice my income, because the rents are wildly high. I'm also not going to pretend they don't have a lot more options than everyone else)

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Lot of them make at least twice as much as I do, and you know where I work and what I make, so you know when they're also single one income, that puts them past comfortable and into well off unless they're in SF, NYC, or LA, where they might just be comfortable

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 07/10/2026

I like, continously point out your average financial crimes/money laundering case takes an average of 7 to 11 years to build and prosecute and that this is much closer in form to money laundering than murder, so the timeline they were operating under was already breakneck speed

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"What will it take for you to admit you are ever wrong?" -- Troy Jackson nails Susan Collins on her vote to confirm Kavanaugh, 8 years to the day after Collins cast the vote that doomed Roe v Wade

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My head also hurts because uh, of places in the MENA region that are relatively safe for queer people, the list begins and ends at Israel, no matter what else one might think of the country. And Palestinians should have a state, but it's sure as fuck not gonna be queer friendly.

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Candidate in CA-22 is doing that, and it's like "please remember which party you're registered with, thanks"

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He's a genuinely wonderful person to work with in basically every meaningful way (even if I may end up having to fist fight him over a microwave at one point)

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Speaking of "actively behaves in ways that speak of the exact opposite," he always, always knocks on the wall of my cubicle when he comes to fix something, and I can't even express how soothing I find it.