My lib sister-in-law was lamenting that their city pool was closing in August because many of the lifeguards are college students going back to school, and I asked her if they had considered hiring the Mexican immigrants, who are excellent swimmers, per Eric Adams.
She wasn't as amused as I was 😂
The Standing Together Movement is using the resistence song from Hunger Games („The Hanging Tree”) to ask for support against the deliberate famine in Gaza.
NATO makes a post comparing themselves to Harry Potter, the Na'vi (Avatar), Han Solo, or the Avengers.
Why are organizations aligning themselves with fictitious super heroes rather than real world movements?
Because in the case of NATO, they are really Voldemort, the humans in Avatar, The Empire in Star wars and whoever the evil overlord is in Avengers.
They are trying to appeal to impressionable people who are easily duped.
I think we should double down on support for No Agenda and simply give Adam and John more feedback.
If you ask me, there's a Pantera problem here in addition to the Metallica problem.
The Metallica Problem: every product adapts to its audience's expectations, which are like everything before it.
The Pantera Problem: anyone doing anything distinctive will starve and therefore dumb down what they are doing to conform to the norm.
The first is the tragedy of the commons, the second the problem of envy and the need for actual income.
No one can make great music for $40k/year.
America Is (still) A Good Place And Worth Fighting For...
thebulwark.com/p/america-is-a-…
Plus: Trump's letter to Jeffrey Epstein.Jonathan V. Last (The Bulwark)
NYT: A Push for More Organ Transplants Is Putting Donors at Risk...
" She was removed from a ventilator and, after 103 minutes, declared dead.
A surgeon made an incision in her chest and sawed through her breastbone.
That’s when the doctors discovered her heart was beating. She appeared to be breathing. They were slicing into Ms. Hawkins while she was alive. "
A Palestinian child takes a bath among tents for displaced people on the shores of Gaza City, on Juen.people.cn
jonathanturley.org/2025/07/20/…
🥱🥱🥱🥱
In Washington, Democratic politicians are calling for a congressional investigation, while in New York; the Writers’ Guild is asking New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) for a state pr…JONATHAN TURLEY
@RealJamesWoods: "'A nation can survive its fools, but it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely. He rots the soul of a nation.' [image]"
x.com/RealJamesWoods/status/19…
@StephenM: "Democrats created a puppet presidency under Biden and then used his autopen to resettle the sadistic criminal underclass of the world in our towns. The Left has weaponized migration against the American People."
we shouldn't brag too much about having no more f*cks to give
there are some things we need to give f*cks about
or we just become empty trash blown down the street
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Report by Marat Khairullin and Mikhail Popov.Zinderneuf (Marat Khairullin Substack)
Israel using starvation as a weapon.
Israel is starving Gazans to death.
@palestine
#StopGenocide #gaza #ceasefirenow
#Israel #genocide #palestine
like this
🔴We Urgently Need Your Help🔴
My Dad is very ill and depends on life-saving medication that he cannot miss — not even for one day.
We urgently need $200 to cover the cost of his treatment.
Any help could truly save his life.
If you can’t donate, please share — it might reach someone who can.
If you want to help but need to confirm we’re truly from #Gaza,
you can contact us directly on WhatsApp: +970 569 565 642
@palestine
Donation link👇
chuffed.org/project/138285-hel…
I'm Joe in the UK, I've been in touch with Aseel from the Sehwel family for over a year now and have been following their difficult struggle to afford medication, shelter and food in Gaza.Chuffed
Gaza's Health Ministry on Sunday reported a significant spike in starvation deaths due to the Israeli blockade, saying that it recorded a total of 18 malnutrition-related deaths within 24 hours.News From Antiwar.com
Folks, don’t be so hard on AOC, she didn’t vote against cutting off weapons to Hitler, she voted against reducing the defensive capabilities of the Nazi regime. Did I say Hitler, sorry, I meant Netanyahu. Oh, and I meant, Israel, not the Nazi regime.
reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitali…
#israel #genocide #ethnicCleansing #apartheid #settlerColonialism #AOC #democrats #unitedStates #complicity #Palestine #Gaza #WestBank
Disisdeguey🔻Pavlichenko🇵🇸 reshared this.
kolektiva.social/@igd_news/114…
"Brand new from @cbmilstein - a collection of short stories of resistance to fascism, white supremacy, ICE, and rising authoritarianism. "This zine, then, is a small sampler of acts of solidarity that just might keep us safer under fascism in order to get more of us to the other side, toward a world without fascism." Includes PDFs for printing zines. Read here: itsgoingdown.org/everyday-ant"
Long-time anarchist author and organizer Cindy Milstein presents a collection of stories about everyday resistance to fascism. Print PDF HERE Read PDF HERE Coincidentally—or sadly—I’m finishing up...It's Going Down
BILL GATES’ APEEL COATING GETS APPROVAL ON ORGANIC PRODUCE
APEEL, the Bill Gates backed company, has now been officially approved for use on U.S. organic produce.
Your organic produce is now treated with a chemical coating designed to make them look fresh longer.
⚠️ The corrupted FDA approved APEEL as a fungicide, not a “coating”, a technical loophole that slides it under organic certification rules.
⚠️So while you think you’re buying clean, untouched food, you’re actually getting produce with compounds like arsenic, lead, cadmium, and palladium.
t.me/majestic12hubchat/989370 minds.com/newsfeed/17799000942…
🚨 BILL GATES’ APEEL COATING GETS APPROVAL ON ORGANIC PRODUCE APEEL, the Bill Gates backed company, has now been officially approved for use on U.S. organic produce.Telegram
Coded Artist likes this.
This one is especially horrendous:
From crew member Tania Safi's instagram: instagram.com/p/DMVlU3aiCaF/?u…
#Handala #FreedomFlotilla #Gaza #palestine #Genocide #BreakTheSiege
4,971 likes, 236 comments - taniasafi on July 20, 2025: "Some of the acid from this “water tank” that was supposed to be used in our kitchen spilled out before filling ‘Handala’, which splashed up on my leg and burned it.Instagram
@nyanide @adiz It breaks stuff I use, like X tunneling over ssh, VNC, etc. Even if it worked as designed, I would have no use for it.
> on modern hardware.
That's the other problem. "Modern" means "regular new desktop machine with GPU and fuck battery-powered small devices or old computers: send them to the landfill".
If it breaks things I do on my desktop machine and will consume more resources on battery-powered machines, the cost of switching is non-trivial, and there is zero benefit as far as I can tell, then fuck what Gnome wants to do to hose Linux.
you don't like the future anon? You an x-shill? 
What is your use case for those thing?
Ole Miss football player Corey Adams is killed in Tennessee shooting
https://apnews.com/article/corey-adams-ole-miss-death-shooting-733f792e592ed4540d60ed7777c21f8c?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Sports @sports-AssociatedPress
Court rules Mississippi's social media age verification law can go into effect
https://apnews.com/article/mississippi-social-media-lawsuit-age-verification-2e040118ee51f3852bc99f8f213c861d?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Technology @technology-AssociatedPress
Rust is something I should give a shot but been too lazy even tho the barrier to entry is really low. I don't care that it's something trannies endorse (have you seen the activity on my other accounts?)
I just want another thing to have under my toolbelt
We finally got Huckabe Back
Author's Note: Events are moving very fast in the region and rumours are rife—the information in the article is accurate but updates will be required in the near future.vanessa beeley (Vanessa Beeley)
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English and Gotterup defy expectations to finish 2nd and 3rd at British Open
https://apnews.com/article/english-gotterup-british-open-618ba2cde8af2bab258c6cb81a94a6d4?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Sports @sports-AssociatedPress
Emerging-market borrowers are tapping the euro bond market at the fastest pace in over a decade, capitalizing on the rising demand for diversification away from the US dollar.Vinicius Andrade (Bloomberg)
How the French Left is Winning
bellacaledonia.org.uk/2025/07/…
Europe’s Crisis Is Only Just Beginning | Aaron Bastani Meets Jean-Luc MélenchonBella Caledonia
This guy has a better write up on it than me, but mine is a newer upload so it's a little higher in quality. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp6aZIhHiRECannik...YouTube
Sir Matt reshared this.
Russia insists on achieving Ukraine goals despite Trump's ultimatum
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-kremlin-dmitry-peskov-a36f04fbf04b7ff702920f75fade3789?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Business and Finance @business-and-finance-AssociatedPress
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Whether in line for water or food for babies, at homes, in tents, or at a church – this week, again, hundreds of innocent people were killed in strikes on Gaza. The IDF doesn't feel the need to explain this policy to the publicNir Hasson (Haaretz)
50 Extremely Rare And Amazing Historical Pictures That Will Completely And Totally Change Your Perspective On the World.
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everything is fake and gay reshared this.
Marcus Smart will sign with the Lakers after getting a buyout from Wizards, AP source says
https://apnews.com/article/lakers-marcus-smart-61dfdf2cd9f4b68fc2f3a345382b0b7e?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Sports @sports-AssociatedPress
ai-explorer.io/vie-privee-donn…
#vieprivée #intelligenceartificielle
À l'ère de l'intelligence artificielle, les assistants, chatbots et agents IA demandent de plus en plus d'accès à nos données personnelles sous prétexte d'améliorer leur fonctionnement.La voix du futur (AI Explorer)
#politics #capitalism #enshittification
It’s as if the smell of burnt plastic from a dollar store has permeated the world. Things are worse: chipboard furniture, T-shirts unrecognizable after a second wash, packaged foods with more preservatives than ingredients. Airplane seats turned into backrests. Automatic restroom lights that turn off at a whim. But also newspaper articles shamelessly written with ChatGPT and its algorithmic prose. Nothing is made to be loved. Only to be bought.
In a study titled The Concept and Measurement of Product Quality (1976), researcher E. Scott Maynes observed that quality is an inherently subjective concept, as it depends on the preferences of each consumer. Following his reasoning, it cannot be stated in absolute terms that an iPhone 15 is of “better quality” than a 2003 Nokia. For some consumers — although we know there won’t be many — the Nokia’s extreme durability may be more valuable than the iPhone’s technological innovations. Things aren’t worse, they just seem worse to us. But why?
“There is a pessimism that permeates a large part of the population, making everything seem inferior to us,” explains Javier Carbonell, deputy director of Future Policy Lab, a think tank focused on designing public policies to combat economic inequalities, over the phone. “This climate affects the judgments we make about the policies implemented and also the products and goods we consume.” According to the expert, the main factor driving this criticism is that the great promise of capitalism — if you work, you can have a decent life, buy a house, and go on vacation — is no longer being fulfilled; the social elevator has broken down. “Added to this is the impact of social media, which shows lives unattainable for most people,” he adds.
According to Carbonell, coordinator of the book La desigualdad en España (Inequality in Spain) (2024), the “culture of austerity” that emerged after the Great Recession (2008–2014) has been replaced by a “culture of efficiency,” embodied by Elon Musk, who champions a model aimed at minimizing costs. He first applied it at X (formerly Twitter) — where he laid off more than 75% of the workforce — and later, in the U.S. government.
He’s not alone: Mark Zuckerberg dubbed 2023 the “Year of Efficiency” and carried out massive layoffs at Meta. Amazon, like many other companies, has been gradually replacing human workers with robots and automated systems — to the point that in some of its warehouses, there’s no need to even turn on the lights.
When it comes to public services, the situation is different. Neither the pessimistic climate nor the supposed culture of efficiency alone explain why, between 2017 and 2022, the number of people with private insurance grew by 4% per year. According to the report The Healthcare System: Current Situation and Future Prospects, published in 2024, the main reason why Spaniards are turning away from the public healthcare system is the endless waiting lists.
Carbonell argues that, in absolute terms, healthcare services may not be worse than they were a few years ago. “The big problem is that they haven’t adapted to the pace of social change. They haven’t evolved enough to serve the entire elderly population, whose demographic size is increasing every year,” he argues.
Guangzhou, China
There’s one conclusion that comes up repeatedly throughout this report: the perception that everything is of lower quality is more pronounced among older people. The reasons are varied. One is that attributes like durability — which used to be a major factor in how people judged a product’s quality — have lost relevance.
Psychologist Albert Vinyals, author of El consumidor tarado (The Disordered Consumer) (2019), recalls that years ago, the first thing car ads highlighted was their longevity. “Now we don’t even consider it,” he notes over the phone. “My grandmother, when she went to buy clothes, looked at the type of fabric they were made of. Now, no one knows what their pants are made of. Why would they? In a year, we’ll stop wearing them because they’ll no longer be fashionable.”
The textile industry perfectly illustrates this transformation in consumption patterns. As Marta D. Riezu, author of La moda justa (Fair Fashion) (2021), points out: “We consume clothing as if it were a disposable item.” In the last 20 years, textile production has doubled. In Spain, it is estimated that each citizen discards around 21 kilograms of clothing per year, according to the European Environment Agency.
Riezu explains via email that consumers’ growing preference for novelty over durability has created a generational divide in how quality is understood. “It’s a change in mentality that our grandparents (and some of our parents) don’t conceive or understand: buying to discard after a short time.” According to Riezu, the fast fashion industry encourages impulse and material reward. He warns: “There is no attachment, respect, or emotional journey with a garment you spend less than 20 years with.”
The dissonance between who we are now and who we used to be is reinforced by an even more powerful tension: the gap between who we are and who we want to be. While it’s only natural to blame multinational corporations for maximizing profit margins at the expense of consumers, and governments whose budget cuts have strangled already depleted public services, market logic is hard to dispute: things aren’t necessarily worse — they’re, to a large extent, exactly what we want them to be, or what we’ve been made to want. Put another way: it’s not the quality of things that’s declined — it’s us.
Rothenburgsort
There’s a YouTube documentary about “planned obsolescence” with over a million views. It explains how some companies design certain products — especially household appliances — stop working after a certain period of time. This isn’t a conspiracy theory, but a proven fact. However, there’s another, lesser-known but even more effective method: convincing consumers that a product is outdated for aesthetic or symbolic reasons, even if it still works. This phenomenon is called “perceived obsolescence.” For example, Vinyals mentions young people who refuse to rent an apartment because it has old furniture, even though the material it’s made of is more durable and sturdier than the IKEA furniture they’ll ultimately end up investing in.
“Advertising and subliminal messages have turned human beings into zombies with no other goal than consumption,” says Juan Villoro in No soy un robot (I Am Not a Robot) (2024). A zombie who, moreover, has no time to waste. Rushing around and shopping for convenience are, according to Vinyals, another of the “pathologies” of the modern consumer. He questions why, instead of going to the market or the fruit stand, we prefer to buy tasteless tomatoes at the 24-hour supermarket next door. Why we spend $3 on a carton of juice instead of squeezing oranges, when we know the industrial version is made from concentrate. “Perhaps the best-known example of buying for convenience is paying around €75 per kilo for coffee just because it comes in capsules,” says Vinyals.
When did we stop having standards? That’s the question historian Wendy A. Woloson explores in Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America (2022). It all began in the mid-19th century. Before that, very few people owned many things. Objects were typically multifunctional: a table might serve as a work surface by day and a dinner table by night. Things were cared for and repaired — an old housecoat might become a child’s pair of pants. But as markets expanded and mass production took hold, cheaper and more accessible goods began to appear. “People were enchanted by the mix of variety and low price, as if they’d stumbled upon a secret treasure at minimal cost,” Woloson explains via email.
Over time, fashion trends fused with cheap products, and buying something new became almost mandatory. There was no longer any excuse not to have “the latest thing,” because it was within reach of almost everyone. As Woloson explains: “We have embraced this degraded material world, sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously. The things we need to live our lives — to do our work, to express ourselves, to understand who we are, and to forge relationships with others — are fundamentally cheap and alienating.” Paradoxically, this overabundance of things makes us poorer: “Like our objects, interactions and ways of thinking have become mediocre: superficial, ephemeral, and degraded.”
Technology can improve product quality, but it can also increase mediocrity and flaws. Artificial intelligence is a clear example of this. In just a few years, companies have handed over much of their customer service to algorithms and robots. According to a 2024 report by the software company Salesforce, 62% of these services in Spain are already automated. Today, it’s easier to converse with a machine than with a real person. The problem is that no one likes these systems: according to a study by the Cetelem Observatory published last October, five out of 10 consumers openly reject virtual assistants. The conclusion is clear: society isn’t adapting to the pace of technological advancement.
José Francisco Rodríguez, president of the Spanish Association of Customer Relations Experts, admits that a lack of digital skills can be particularly frustrating for older adults, who perceive that the quality of customer service has deteriorated due to automation. However, Rodríguez argues that, generally speaking, automation does improve customer service. Furthermore, he strongly rejects the idea that companies are seeking to cut costs with this technology: “Artificial intelligence does not save money or personnel,” he states. “The initial investment in technology is extremely high, and the benefits remain practically the same. We have not detected any job losses in the sector either.”
There are other harms caused by artificial intelligence that are rarely discussed. For example, a key tool gained from the internet — real opinions from other users — has been rendered useless. A 2020 analysis by Fakespot of 720 million Amazon reviews revealed that approximately 42% were unreliable or fake. This means that almost half of the reviews we consult before purchasing a product online may have been generated by robots, whose purpose is to either encourage or discourage purchases, depending on who programmed them.
Artificial intelligence itself could deteriorate if no action is taken. In 2024, bot activity accounted for almost half of internet traffic. This poses a serious problem: language models are trained with data pulled from the web. When these models begin to be fed with information they themselves have generated, it leads to a so-called “model collapse.”
It’s difficult to prove that today’s products are worse than those of 20 years ago. Many products are hard to compare due to the enormous price difference. According to Flyersrights, in recent decades, the space between airplane seats has decreased by up to 15 centimeters. But at the same time, flying in the United States now costs more than $200 less than it did three decades ago.
The real problem isn’t buying pants that don’t last or traveling in an uncomfortable plane. The real problem is that, with each purchase, we support two of the most polluting industries on the planet. The production and purchase of low-quality products is not sustainable. For Marta D. Riezu, a truly good product “contributes something useful to society. It’s linked to ethics, effort, and commitment.”
english.elpais.com/culture/202…
Airplane seats are getting smaller and smaller, clothes are unrecognizable after the second wash, and machines now answer our calls. Quality and care for craftsmanship seem to be things of the pastDaniel Soufi (Ediciones EL PAÍS S.L.)
Robert Biloute - on diaspora-fr.org likes this.
J'adore ces immeubles biscornus, ces murs vermoulus, et ces costumes de théâtre des années 40 😀
like this
John Dvorak is asking why the switch from slaves to enslaved people.
Because, progressives actually do blame the victims, in this case the victims of their ideological ancestors.
They don't actually have the cognitive depth to understand that the shame belongs entirely to the slave owners, the Democrats, so they have to muddle the issue.
New Israeli airstrike in S. Lebanon kills another Hezbollah militant-english.news.cn
What truly is sexual sovereignty? It’s not celibacy, it’s not indulgence. It’s truth braided with power, expressed through love.In this clip from The Spiritu...YouTube
#geopolitics #EU #GAFAM #NATO
You have been warned yet again, the US cannot be trusted...
Microsoft, under oath, admits the possibility that EU‑hosted data can be accessed by US agencies without any notifications
In sworn French‑Senate testimony, Microsoft’s legal chief for France(M. Anton Carniaux) conceded he cannot guarantee that data on French citizens stored wholly in EU Microsoft datacenters is safe from U.S. silent access and acknowledged that French or any EU authorities might not even be notified if access occurs.
Delivered under oath, this statement is an official legal recognition of the silent‑access risk inherent in relying on Microsoft’s infrastructure.
toot.cat/@devopscats/114879479…
You have been warned yet again, the US cannot be trusted... Microsoft, under oath, admits the possibility that EU‑hosted data can be accessed by US agencies without any notifications In sworn French‑Senate testimony, Microsoft’s legal chief for Fr…Toot.Cat
Palestinian-British analyst Abdel Bari Atwan issues a warning: the US-backed rise of Jolani in Syria could plunge the entire Middle East into chaosthealtworld (TheAltWorld’s Newsletter)
#politics #sovereignty #EU #NATO
EU countries are digital colonies.
brusselssignal.eu/2025/07/digi…
France’s deepening reliance on US tech giants is raising alarms about digital sovereignty and exposing public data to foreign jurisdictions. In a French Senate…Anne-Laure Dufeal (Brussels Signal)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/20/pope-condemns-barbarity-of-israel-war-gazaMastodon
reshared this
So maybe those protesting (and risking prison) for doing and the rest of us need to change tactic and find a way to resolve this in the courts.
No qualified judge can argue with the wording of international law, and the fact a number of international independent bodies have labelled this genocide. If anything else a judge in a lower court may not have the power to judge and needs to hand to a higher court.
@zleap Or so many people start protesting that there isn’t room enough in the prisons to hold them.
(And nothing to stop us from doing both and other things besides.)
Φύγετε απ την Αθήνα 😇
Όλα αυτά αποτέλεσαν παρελθόν τη στιγμή που πήρε την «καλύτερη απόφαση της ζωής του», όπως τη χαρακτηρίζει ο ίδιος, και μετακόμισε οικογενειακά στη Βίτσα. Η ζωή του έκτοτε περιστρέφεται γύρω από βόλτες στο Φαράγγι του Βίκου, flower safari, μανιτάρια, ποτάμια, σκι, χιόνια, βουνά, παρέες γύρω από το τζάκι και άλλα πολλά που μπορούν να φέρουν δάκρυα στα μάτια των ανθρώπων που ζουν στα μεγάλα αστικά κέντρα.
The Late Show was canceled because of Trump!!
Paramount is seeking the Trump administration’s approval for an $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. CBS also recently agreed to pay Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit claiming “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Trump is the equivalent of the Scooby Gang, just pulling the mask off of everything the fails but the libs love.
gothamist.com/news/gov-hochul-…
New York gave the show major tax breaks a decade ago to keep it in Manhattan.Giulia Heyward (Gothamist)
Trump demanded that teams in Washington, DC and Cleveland change their names back to racial slurs against Native Americans to distract from Jeffrey Epstein.Jason Easley (PoliticusUSA)
Trump's latest demand: Washington football and Cleveland baseball teams should change names back
https://apnews.com/article/trump-indians-redskins-guardians-commanders-8863d8d95f56414f0f74cab0e897a93f?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
Posted into Sports @sports-AssociatedPress
Anne D.
Unknown parent • • •Vient un moment où c’est plus supportable…