Mike Davis used a profanity laced tweet to tell former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords to “fuck off” after she shared condolences for a National Guard member killed in a shooting and called for action against gun violence. Giffords, who survived being shot in the head while meeting constituents in 2011, has become one of the country’s most visible advocates for gun safety. His outburst did not just punch down, it sneered at the idea that someone scarred by gunfire might want fewer people to live through what she did.
What makes it even uglier is how routine this is in MAGA world. Staff Sgt. Sarah Beckstrom was only on that D.C. street because trump flooded the capital with National Guard troops as part of a domestic crackdown that a federal judge has already ruled unlawful, saying he exceeded his authority by using soldiers for open ended “crime deterrence.” Instead of grappling with the fact that this lawless deployment helped put her in the line of fire, Davis tried to redirect blame onto Giffords, Senator Mark Kelly, and Democrats, accusing them of importing “terrorists” while a soldier lay dead in a city militarized for trump’s politics, not public safety.
Coming after Giffords is not just insensitive, it is obscene. This is a woman whose skull was shattered while doing basic democracy talking with voters in a grocery store parking lot. Mocking her plea for fewer shootings and defending an unlawful troop deployment that turned people like Sarah Beckstrom into expendable props is the tell that this movement is not about freedom or safety, it is about domination, cruelty, and keeping both guns and soldiers on American streets no matter who gets killed.
Just when you think Republicans can’t sink any lower, they never fail to disappoint.
As I’ve grown older, the list of absent friends continues to grow, and while not all of them are AIDS-related at this point, on every December 1st, I remember them all…
Built in 1962, this Modernist home in Los Angeles was designed by architect Carl Maston as his personal residence. Because of the steeply sloping site, the swimming pool had to be placed in the front—cleverly hidden from the street by a walled embankment.
A USC graduate, Maston went on to design more than 100 buildings across Southern California, each showcasing his inventive, livable approach to modern design.
Agustín Hernández constructed his architectural office in Mexico City like a tree. Access to the building erected in the early 1970s is via a gangplank.
by Carsten Krohn | 12/20/2018
When asked what inspired him to create this building, Agustín Hernández replies: “The pre-Columbian architecture of Mexico.” He speaks softly and exudes happiness. The path through the building is dramatic and accessing it is not hazard-free, as the gangplank is built without a railing and there is thus a drop of several meters either side. The metal entrance gate slides into the wall in a manner distinctly inspired by sci-fi, and then up spring-mounted steps visitors reach a cavernous room with the same concrete surfaces found on the exterior. Models that look more like sculptures than houses are scattered throughout the space. Hernández explains the architecture of a military academy with the aid of one of these. He built the facility in reference to the monumental pyramid cities of Chichén Itzá, Monte Albán and Teotihuacán. He points out how a pyramid-shaped structure forms the end point of an axis one kilometer in length. The abstract mega-structure appears at once archaic and futuristic. [more]
I started writing on my blog some years ago, and since then I’ve had a lot of reasons to stop writing. Here’s a list of why nobody cares about your blog
Your blog is not original. There are hundreds of blogs out there, what makes you think yours is different? You’re just probably repeating things you’ve read in another place.
You’re not an expert in your field, otherwise you wouldn’t be publishing in a blog, but writing papers and giving interviews.
You are only showing the world how stupid you are. If what you say is not better than silence, you better shut up.
If someone, at some point, cares about your blog will be only to criticize it. Your work is trash, and exposing it will make people notice you’re trash as well.
But all of these things are not a problem, because you shouldn’t care even a little bit about what other think. Here are my reasons about why you should care about your blog
You can use it as notes to your future self. After some years you’ll have a nice journal of how you have evolved over the years. Rereading your old texts is like communicating with your past self.
To release ideas that you have in your head and that you need to get out. Even if nobody else cares about them, writing them down can be a cathartic process.
To learn to write and express complex ideas. The best way to learn is to teach (even if nobody is reading you). As Paul Graham says 1, writing about something, even something you know well, usually shows you that you didn’t know it as well as you thought.
Even if the ideas you’re sharing with the world aren’t original you can enrich them with your personal view. As Bill Thurson said 2 all of us have clear understanding of a few things and murky concepts of many more. There is no way to run out of ideas in need of clarification.
If you have lost time solving a superspecific problem then you need to write about it, it can happen that you end up being someone hero some day. It can also happen that you’ll have the same problem again and then you’ll be your own hero.
It’s cool to maintain a blog, even it’s only from the technical perspective. The feeling of complete ownership over something is really fulfilling, even if it’s just some bytes on a remote server in this ethereal world.
You can say whatever the fuck you want. It’s your blog, you don’t need to follow any rules. I just cursed and you can’t do nothing about it, because this is my blog and I do what I want. This will give you a sense of freedom that’s really cool imho.
PS. I was just about to publish this post, and then I started to think “why should I publish this text? Who is going to waste their time to read this crap?”, but you know what? I just don’t care what you think, here’s my post and you can do nothing about it ????
I will—for obvious reasons we’re all aware of—not be participating in the culinary festivities of the day (damn it!), but you’re all in my thoughts and wishing you a very happy holiday!
that he can’t ever have an appropriate human response to anything. you’d imagine that every now and then he’d stumble into decency by accident, but no. somehow, in every situation, he always manages to be the worst person possible.
“instead of pardons, some of my more enthusiastic staffers were already drafting the paperwork to ship Gobble and Waddle straight to the Terrorist Confinement Center in El Salvador.”
HA HA HA HA HA, GET IT? Donny was going to send the turkeys to the same slave-labor torture-gulag into which he disappears innocent migrants. gross human rights violations are so fucking hilarious, am I right?
what kind of sick ghoul even thinks of such a thing to say?
also, ‘Gobble’ and ‘Waddle’? they named the turkeys after the way Donny eats and walks? do you think they intended to name them ‘Goebbels’ and ‘Wehrmacht’ but decided at the last minute it was too on-the-nose?
how dare this corrupt fuck even joke about granting pardons. he’s made a mockery of the whole process. he’s pardoned war criminals. he’s pardoned cop beaters. pedophiles. political cronies. business partners.
stuff a sock in it, Donny. after all that shit, no one’s impressed that you’re pardoning birds.
if Donny had any decency at all, he’d have hidden himself away in shame, and gotten Joe Biden’s autopen to pardon those turkeys. but silly me, for even imagining some farcical version of Donny that has the ability to feel shame.
no, Preznit Fuckwit has no shame — and so he’s out here making sick jokes about disappearing Goebbels and Wehrmacht into a Salvadoran torture prison.
fact check: shut the fuck up, Piggy. do you even own a mirror?
it was so fucking ludicrous — and so inappropriate — that even the lapdogs at the Washington Post couldn’t help but commit a journalism and point out the absurdity of it.
The FBI has requested interviews with six Democratic members of the U.S. Congress who in a video message told members of the military they can legally refuse to carry out unlawful orders, a Justice Department official told Reuters on Tuesday.
what a super-appropriate use of government resources, to send law enforcement to intimidate political opponents who had the temerity to annoy America’s Mad King.
these six Democrats committed no crime, and everyone knows it. this is pure authoritarian bullshit. Dear Leader wants us all to be too terrified to open our mouths in protest of his evil fuckery. yeah, well — here’s a free clue for you, Donny.
we’ve become the very thing we used to mock — a tinpot third-world autocracy being mismanaged into the ground by a dangerous lunatic.
lucky us.
look who Piss-Drunk Pete Kegstand, Secretary of Who Gives A Shit What He Calls It, is mad at today.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is planning for the military to sever all ties with Scouting America, saying the group once known as the Boy Scouts is no longer a meritocracy and has become an organization designed to “attack boy-friendly spaces,” according to documents reviewed by NPR.
apparently the Scouts have come down with a bad case of woke.
In a draft memo to Congress, which sources shared with NPR but which has not yet been sent, Hegseth criticizes Scouting for being “genderless” and for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
genderless! oh noes! someone wake up Nancy Mace.
Last year, as a Fox News host, he complained about the Scouts changing their name and admitting girls back in 2018.
what is Piss Drunk Pete afraid of here. the boys are going to get cooties?
His memo to the House and Senate Armed Services committees argues the Scouts have strayed from their mission to “cultivate masculine values.”
tell me more about these ‘boy-friendly spaces.’ does Piss Drunk Pete imagine himself living inside a Little Rascals short, in which he’s a proud member of the He-Man Woman Haters Club?
maybe if Piss-Drunk Pete is so hot for ‘boys’ to have their own ‘spaces’ where they can learn ‘masculine values,’ maybe he should start his own club. a government-sponsored youth group, complete with its own uniform. a group where boys can learn to be loyal patriots, working to better their lives in service of Dear Leader.
I’m loving this idea.
of course, this new org is going to need a name. how about the Shitler Youth? those two pardoned turkeys, Goebbels and Wehrmacht, can be the official mascots.
or is that too on the nose?
where does Plastered Pete even find time for this penny-ante shit? he’s running an entire branch of the government. he’s responsible for millions of employees. there are only so many hours in the day.
but here he is, drafting memos about whatever stupid bug has wedged itself up his ass on any given day. way to focus on what’s important, you drunk-dialing national security nightmare.
seriously, Donny and all his henchmen are wrecking everything — from the big shit like geopolitical relationships, all the way down to tiny things like what the Scouts call themselves.
it’s all so fucking petty — and, as always, embarrassing.
other countries are laughing at us, when they’re not recoiling in horror.
when these shitsticks leave office, there are going to be so many broken pieces to glue back together. please don’t scream at the next Democratic president when they don’t have everything fixed after three months. it’s going to take years.
let’s go out on a high note. you may think you already know everything there is to know about Mark Kelly. he’s a veteran. a devoted husband. a patriot. a senator. an astronaut. hell, dude’s even worn a gorilla suit in space.
but here’s another thing you may not know about Mark Kelly: he’s a skateboard whiz.
I shit you not. here’s Mark back in 2022, at the Navajo Nation Parade. check out these moves.
look at Mark go! let’s gif that shit for posterity’s sake.
now let’s compare and contrast.
this is going to be my closing message for the foreseeable future:
practice self-care. do what you need to do to keep sane. if that means you need to disengage with my daily posts for a while, I get it. this community of ours will still be here when you return.
to all the people who have signed on in the days since the election, welcome aboard. settle in as we all try to deal with the shitfuckery that’s ahead of us.
we are all in this together, and we are all here for each other.
