Reading//
A strange phenomenon. Functional literacy continues to decline. That's a measurable fact. But the unit sale of books jumped dramatically, 3.4%, in 2024, but increased only marginally, 0.4%, in 2025.
14% of sales were digital audiobooks (downloaded from vendor).
[to be continued...]
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A bsky shoutout moment from the Some More News episode “Dear Dave Rubin: Come On, Buddy” (taken from the YouTube transcript)
9:45 Dave Rubin (on a clip from Surrounded): “Intersectionality is a piece of wokeism… if you're gonna group people on immutable characteristics and you decide based on this, "We got to put Black people up here. We've got to put white guys down here. Gays are gonna be above the straights, trans will be up above the gays, you know, you have this endless hierarchy…”
Cody Johnston (in the studio, commenting): “Sure, man. That's definitely what's happening. It's actually a whole algorithm where we [the Left] take how Black or gay someone is and then multiply it by their Bluesky follower count. This is that very childlike idea that if you talk about race or the potential effects of racism, that somehow makes you the racist.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:6swqaas6en4jjgsjfkrj7amp/bafkreidmixfxkrzcj527ej5m2dfzhp7hk2typqhmbjgj6zej7br245p5re)
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He wrote then that America hadn't crossed the line yet—
Trade unions, though weakened, continue to operate legally and in some sectors are resurgent. Opposition parties function openly. Civil society organisations litigate, protest, and mobilise without being outlawed, and courts routinely block executive action. The owners of production and finance may still prefer the certainty and predictability associated with democracy and the rule of law.
But subsequently, Trump's rhetoric&actions have veered closer to that line. His cronies control at least one major network outright, &according to the NYT (9 April 26, “U.S. Pushes Allies to Chase a New Terrorism Target: The Far Left” ),
Trump … aims to deploy counterterrorism tools against far-left groups, even as [he] has offered little evidence they present a dire threat.
In March, at a meeting in Ottawa of state secretaries from Australia, Canada &European democracies, Trump goon Monica A. Jacobsen stunned her audience saying the Global War on Terror was now aimed at far-leftists including
communists, Marxists, anarchists, anticapitalists and those with “eco-extremist” and “other self-identified antifascist ideologies”
&Washington expected the countries represented at the meeting to do their part in the struggle. (Recall that some of those countries have pretty-far leftist &eco parties represented in their parliaments.) According to the same story, Trump’s senior counterterrorism chud, the regrettable Seb Gorka, has pressurised foreign allies to investigate leftists abroad &their connections with American citizens.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:6swqaas6en4jjgsjfkrj7amp/bafkreicimq4jb243fyifa2i55vhje24r4w33p7lj76s6w7bkzh6be2fnha)
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Squander [s-kwan-der] Verb
To lovingly and enthusiastically throw money at things you'll probably regret later.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:6swqaas6en4jjgsjfkrj7amp/bafkreiauxmee6vjo64z7kxkljtwou2qshk7cj6fzorkxpoj545tcxehpom)
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“96% of US voters live in a precinct where votes are cast with a paper record. The paper trails allow for detailed audits to be conducted to match digital records of votes with paper ones. And you can’t hack paper.” [Sean Lyngaas, CNN, reporting data from the nonpartisan election security group, Verified Voting.] Large scale vote tampering would involve not just hacking voting machines, but then somehow also spiriting fake paper ballots into thousands of voting precincts, with each fake paper ballot having to match the false information entered into the voting machines; and then, presumably, an equal number of real paper ballots would have to be spirited out of the precinct, because the number of fake ballots cannot be in excess of real ballots marked. In other words, the number of fake ballots cannot exceed the number of voters who actually passed through the polling station (a number that is tallied separately). An excess of votes would be quickly detected. The goal would be to “flip” actual votes cast, not to add extra votes on top of actual votes cast. Accomplishing all that would take near-supernatural abilities, and a conspiracy involving hundreds, if not thousands, of people on the ground, including polling station workers and poll-watchers.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:6swqaas6en4jjgsjfkrj7amp/bafkreic7k6czcsvkvbmlm55ptuv37xyjovml6xzacrrjnl3kuq3mp77mbq)
