Tackman Babcock

@tackmanbabcock.bsky.social

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Recovering from blinders of STEM, neoliberalism & fundamentalism. Enjoy film, sci-fi, literary nonfiction, feminism, philosophy, cats. Wish: dismantle reactionary targeting of trans people, Māori, Muslims, Jewish people, etc.
Tangata Tiriti, NZ

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Tackman Babcock

You had me at “exceedingly dry in-jokes for recherché subcultures”

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I will bang this drum forever: in THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE: THE GERMANS, 1933-45 Milton Mayer interviewed 10 ordinary Germans after WW2 to learn how fascism took hold. There was never a moment when everyone woke up:

if you’re waiting for everyone around you to wake up, you’ll wait forever. this is how the people grinding our bones to make their bread WANT you to be. paralyzed, alienated & purposeless

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Well this is grim

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Marina Hyde: "it’s incredible to think that only a short while ago we thought we’d eradicated measles and Nigel Farage. Both have now been brought back, largely by the same people" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Sunak axed, the cast eviscerated: at last, it’s the Tories’ season finale | Marina Hydewww.theguardian.com It was worthy of a TV special. Truss, Rees-Mogg, Shapps, Liam Fox: so many erased after 14 years of dystopian soap opera, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde

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From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the Blessed Machine.

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internet was down and i was stuck with my own stupid thoughts like some kind of animal

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There is a 7 foot tall guy behind Rishi Sunak who likely ran for office just to be able to hold a printed out L behind him during his concession speech.

Nina Power showing again Nazi love for playing cynical semantic games, demanding simple answers where nuance and understanding are demonstrably needed—then pivoting to invoking ‘complexity’ and ‘context’ where the answers are really dead simple

Kinda hilarious that it turns out the context and the complexity behind the nazi flag was that the artist is a nazi.

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"None of the key concepts contained in the proposed principles are truly present in te Tiriti. Instead, the proposed principles are built on additions, omissions and distortions of the original text". www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu...

Treaty Principles Bill: Māori translators pen letter over 'deeply flawed translations'www.rnz.co.nz A group of licensed Māori translators have hit out at the upcoming Treaty Principles Bill, calling it factually incorrect and misleading.

Good reading. Might be useful to folk keen to throw in a towel after a flawed candidate had a bad speech or if they feel that elections will be ended and there’s just nothing else to do.

2nd July 1863. Battle of Gettysburg. For perhaps the only time in the entire war the Confederates seem to be winning. Dan Sickles, commander III Corps, is ordered hold on Cemetery Ridge. For reasons unknown he advances. Broken, his men begin to flee. This is the moment on which the war depends /1

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Remember when Kathleen Stock got a sympathetic hour-long interview with Kim Hill on RNZ? Good times. Anyway here she is offering unqualified support to a writer who was just revealed to be - in the words of her own texts submitted in court - "definitely a Nazi"

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It can’t be repeated enough: transphobia is a warning sign for fascism. The rights of trans people are a canary in the mine, and when they’re assaulted it means we are all under assault.

formerly 'left-wing' UK philosopher and transphobe Nina Power has been exposed in her own text messages as a literal Nazi (occult variety) x.com/Luke_Turner/...

x.comx.com

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It turns out the problem with the cancer drugs was that National didn't know about Pharmac so I've suggested a few other existing processes and pieces of legislation the government could also look into. Nobody can suggest I'm not helpful thespinoff.co.nz/politics/02-...

The government has discovered Pharmac. What should it find next?thespinoff.co.nz Solutions to all kinds of pressing problems could be hiding in plain sight.

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The 14th Amendment says if you were involved in an insurrection you can't be president. SCOTUS said they won't allow anyone to enforce that because of reasons they made up. The Constitution doesn't say the president is immune from criminal law. SCOTUS decided he is because of reasons they made up.

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stumbled onto this lynda Barry comic again which always makes me a little verklempt

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Cheese domain clerics would be fearsome, able to wield power over nutrition and morale but also spoilage and decay

I learnt a new word today - "tyromancy", which means 'divination by means of cheese'.

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Essential reading from Paul Krugman. The imposition of so-called 'austerity' in the UK resulted neither in short-term gain nor long-term stability. The premise and conclusion may be glaringly obvious - look around you - but the disaster is in the detail. www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-...

How the ‘unforced error’ of austerity wrecked Britainwww.theguardian.com The Tories’ cuts were an obvious economic blunder, but their disastrous consequences are still piling up – and there is little hope Labour will reverse the damage

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and even if someone thinks "well I don't like/look at porn so why should it be a priority for me?" it's important to remember that when christofascists say "porn" they also mean age-appropriate comprehensive sex education, media with queer/trans people in it, and picture books about gay penguins.

I know smut may seem like a frivolous thing to be upset about, but crushing it is part of fascism. Controlling all forms of sexual expression is fascism. Only allowing certain kinds is fascism. Smut peddlers are always canaries in the coal mines.

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A few years ago, Jon Lovett floated a theory that media treats Democrats like protagonists - to be challenged, accounted, and forced to be behave in growth-oriented ways - while the GOP are treated like antagonists - immutable, expected to disrupt, thematic obstacles. Thinking about that a lot.

I don’t recall the NYT calling for Trump to step down after being convicted of 34 counts of fraud and being called by a judge at his civil trial a rapist in the common person sense

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Kick em again

GLAAD is responding to a sensational article about healthcare for transgender people in the New York Times with facts #transgender #trans #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA glaad.org/releases/r...#transgender #trans #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA glaad.org/releases/r...

RESPONSE TO NEW YORK TIMES COVERAGE | GLAADglaad.org GLAAD is responding to a sensational article about healthcare for transgender people in the New York Times today with facts: Fact check: it is critical to look at all sensational headlines and articles with a discerning eye. This article not only relies on a sensational headline, it misses the mark in a number of ways,

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I don't want some egghead bureaucrat telling me whether there's poison in the water I drink. Ideally I'd want that decided by a 29yo judge who went to a "biblical law school" and does not believe dinosaurs existed, and then to have that decision reaffirmed six years later by the Supreme Court.

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Challenge: Free Speech Union defend kids' storytime with the fervor you use for defending Captain Cook's 250-year-old corpse, level: impossible vt.tiktok.com/ZSYmBL3Eb/

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FFS. It's long past time security agencies started taking a holistic and systemic look at Destiny Church's actions and rhetoric instead of treating this shit as a series of isolated one offs. This organisation is running a fucking terror campaign.

This cancellation is fucking AWFUL. Those awful fucking grifting thugs at Destiny can go step on all the Lego.

Drag storytime cancelled after 'threats' and opposition from Destiny Churchwww.nzherald.co.nz A city councillor said people had 'threatened our team'.

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Must read from @annaleen.bsky.social on the Ashley Madison data dump. I totally missed this part of the story!

There's something that everyone gets wrong about the Ashley Madison data dump from 2015. And I should know, because I was one of the reporters who broke the story. It's my latest for @[email protected] (sign up for a free account to read). www.newscientist.com/article/mg26...

What everyone gets wrong about the 2015 Ashley Madison scandalwww.newscientist.com Nine years after hackers targeted Ashley Madison, the dating site for wannabe adulterers, many people still don't grasp what was truly chilling about the scandal, says Annalee Newitz

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It's so cool that humanity has invented a machine that does nothing but burn energy to produce fake money to purchase CSAM and the regulatory response is to give the fake money manufacturers real money so they at least don't do that when it might get people killed

This is insane.

Suppose for a minute that boot camps really didn’t work, that they were absolute dog shit—what would the data on re-conviction look like? Then take a look at the data, and realise that it shows they’re *even worse*. #nzpol

"In 1983, the Department of Justice outlined that 71 percent of ‘trainees’ had been re-convicted in just one year. In 1997, official advice to the minister of corrections clarified that 92 percent of all those placed on corrective training in 1988 had been re-convicted: 92 percent! " #nzpol

Putting the boot innewsroom.co.nz Opinion from Victoria University of Wellington: As the ink dries on the Royal Commission’s report in abuse in state care, what must it be like for survivors to witness the Government's direction on bo...

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Everyone, the anti-trans group LAVA are suing Wellington Pride over Pride not granting them a stall a couple of years ago. They have a givealittle for legal costs: givealittle.co.nz/cause/wellin...

Wellington Pride Festival - Legal Givealittlegivealittle.co.nz Wellington Pride Festival is being sued by representatives of an anti-trans group in the Human Rights Review Tribunal - Givealittle

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Remember Simon Bridges sits on one of the trucking lobbies and is the chair of NZTA

Replacing the rail ferries with truck only ferries is utterly corrupt This govt isn't even pretending to be honest How many will go on to be directors of trucking companies?

Accidental Infrastructure Week