lacci - Network

The man didn't fix the church, he didn't fix all of his own problems. But he did some good things and made some structural changes...

The man didn't fix the church, he didn't fix all of his own problems. But he did some good things and made some structural changes to the church that someday might make a big difference.

And he whipped conservatives in the church hierarchy into a raging frenzy which is always fun to see. And they lost more battles with him than they won. And even in the US, who's Catholic Church is among the most conservative, 80% of Catholics approved of him. That's not by any means a given for a pope.

Say what you will about Pope Francis, and there are plenty of negative things to be said, but he was a real change and had a message that a...

Say what you will about Pope Francis, and there are plenty of negative things to be said, but he was a real change and had a message that a lot of people needed to hear.

And every night since Israel's invasion of Gaza, including the last night of his life, Pope Francis called Holy Family Church in Gaza City to talk to regular people there, and mostly to listen to them. And that's pretty different too. And the kind of thing the world needs more of.

"The weapons produced and sold for wars, the profits made at the expense of the most vulnerable and defenceless people, such as those...

"The weapons produced and sold for wars, the profits made at the expense of the most vulnerable and defenceless people, such as those who leave their homeland in search of a better future, the exploitation of resources and peoples, which steals land and health: all this is not an economy, it is not a good aspect of reality to be maintained. It is only bullying, violence. It is just a predatory structure from which humanity must be freed."
—Pope Francis

"The economy that kills, that excludes, that pollutes, that produces war, is not an economy : others call it economy, but it is only a...

"The economy that kills, that excludes, that pollutes, that produces war, is not an economy : others call it economy, but it is only a void, an absence. It is a disease, a perversion of the economy itself and of its vocation. "
(continued)

I especially feel that because I'm poor and I can't financially support many of them. But also because Substack is likely to be very...

I especially feel that because I'm poor and I can't financially support many of them. But also because Substack is likely to be very regime friendly and for some reason people are sticking to it and the economy is likely about to do very poorly.

Thank goodness good people have managed to hang on in little pockets and find independent niches. So much critical reporting comes out of...

Thank goodness good people have managed to hang on in little pockets and find independent niches. So much critical reporting comes out of little outlets or independent people now. People like Erin Reed (who runs Erin in the morning) and the people at 404 Media are doing some critical stuff. We need more and I fear that in this climate we might get less.

Like what is going on at the New York Times when like one opinion writer, Jamelle Bouie, seems like he's carrying almost the entire...

Like what is going on at the New York Times when like one opinion writer, Jamelle Bouie, seems like he's carrying almost the entire weight of contextualizing anything that's happening. There should be people at the news desk doing that and frankly most of the opinion staff there should be employed in a different field. And that's true across the US media and has been for a long time.

Why is it that the political and economic media thinks that knowing history is not something it should do? Like that feels like it should be...

Why is it that the political and economic media thinks that knowing history is not something it should do? Like that feels like it should be absolutely core to what it does and yet across the US news media only very scattered figures seem to be familiar with like what authoritarian takeovers looked like, or frankly most of US history.

If you have the resources and are planning to try to get out of the US now is probably the time. If you are outside the US please try to...

If you have the resources and are planning to try to get out of the US now is probably the time. If you are outside the US please try to help people. If you're here tell people what's happened, protest, help the vulnerable, and hang on. It's probably going to get quite a lot worse.

That is not a stable status quo. Maybe his regime falls apart. Maybe he makes himself firmly dictator. Maybe something else. We have a...

That is not a stable status quo. Maybe his regime falls apart. Maybe he makes himself firmly dictator. Maybe something else. We have a little say in how that goes. But we can't ever go back to where we were January 19th. We can try to pretend but I think that would be an exceptionally unhealthy thing to do and we're likely to end up continuing to be very unstable if we do. We may be unstable no matter what, again we have some say in that, but less say than we'd like.

We're never again going to have a United States that has not had a successful authoritarian coup. We're probably never going to live...

We're never again going to have a United States that has not had a successful authoritarian coup. We're probably never going to live in a United States that is a stable prosperous country that operates under something like our old constitutional system. The system we had is not the status quo anymore. The status quo is that Donald Trump is the dictator of the United States of America and he is in the process of trying to consolidate power.

The United States has undergone a successful authoritarian self-coup and the leadership is now in the process of consolidating power....

The United States has undergone a successful authoritarian self-coup and the leadership is now in the process of consolidating power. They're quite vulnerable right now, but they did it. And it is terrifying to me that virtually the entire population seems either unaware of this or still waiting for the coup to really kick off in earnest.

The regime is still vulnerable, but like they already did the hard legal part. Congress and the supreme court have given them essentially carte blanche.

I saw my first cybertruck in the wild today while I was riding my bike home from PT. I was shocked that it was actually uglier in person...

I saw my first cybertruck in the wild today while I was riding my bike home from PT. I was shocked that it was actually uglier in person than they are in photos, which doesn't seem like it should be possible.

I missed Realms Unknown's two episodes on children's literature from picture books to YA fiction. I listened to them last night, and...

I missed Realms Unknown's two episodes on children's literature from picture books to YA fiction. I listened to them last night, and those episodes are just incredible. Alice Fraser and Chris Skinner really knocked them out of the park.

They're funny and insightful and just overflowing with enthusiasm about the subject matter.I can't recommend them highly enough. You can see them on YouTube or find them in the realms unknown podcast feed. https://youtu.be/gCBWHnjC6NY?si=7BpKIfX56cd9xqY3

https://youtube.com/shorts/d-wRvkLKBXs?si=s6yB9B7eraFcyiwi

https://youtube.com/shorts/d-wRvkLKBXs?si=s6yB9B7eraFcyiwi

The fact that Marcy Rheintgen was inspired by Dorothy Day and went to pray the rosary is something that might strongly resonate with a lot...

The fact that Marcy Rheintgen was inspired by Dorothy Day and went to pray the rosary is something that might strongly resonate with a lot of Catholics who haven't been engaged with the attacks on trans people. At least if they ever hear about that part. It's going to enrage right wing Catholics though. https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:m65ifh7vn5zdgs7izcmht4gy/post/3llrmxzm5ik2n

I don't know if that's the story here or it's something else. They valued X at a shockingly high $30 billion and partly paid for...

I don't know if that's the story here or it's something else. They valued X at a shockingly high $30 billion and partly paid for the acquisition with $12 billion in debt. I wonder if a significant amount of that cash was extracted by Musk to pay personal debts, meet margin calls, or fund his enormous political outlays? I don't think Tesla has fallen enough for him to face margin calls, but perhaps it has. I don't think we know his loan terms for sure so we don't know what the threshold is. 2/2

So X, the ex-Twitter, was just sold to Musk's other company xAI. It's notable that in the past he's sold one of his companies to...

So X, the ex-Twitter, was just sold to Musk's other company xAI. It's notable that in the past he's sold one of his companies to another of his companies in order to prevent them from going bankrupt and tarnishing his image as a brilliant businessman (when Tesla bought Solar City). 1/2

The power is back! https://disabled.social/@Lacci/114201220404873816

The power is back! https://disabled.social/@Lacci/114201220404873816

I guess we need to buy a generator. We've spent like 2% of the last year with no power. I guess the days of us having only very limited...

I guess we need to buy a generator. We've spent like 2% of the last year with no power. I guess the days of us having only very limited outages and only in warm parts of the year are over.