Politicians have now discovered that people are using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to protect their privacy and bypass invasive laws.
Their solution?
Entirely ban the use of VPNs.
Yes, really.
As of this writing, Wisconsin lawmakers are escalating their war on privacy
by targeting VPNs in the name of “protecting children”
in A.B. 105/S.B. 130.
It’s an age verification bill
that requires all websites distributing material that could conceivabl…
News flash: Billionaires are unpopular. But, the strength of the sentiment and how fast the needle has moved were both surprises to me. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/opinion/billionaires-politics-money.html
So I grew up next to #Chernobyl and this is, well, TERRIFYING.
A story for y’all: I’m from a city called Zhytomyr, 2 hours west of Kyiv in the North of #Ukraine. We were downwind of the Chernobyl #nuclear power plant when the 1986 disaster happened.
I wasn’t born for another 12 years, but my childhood was filled with stories and the aftermath of it all. Things like:
- My grandmother worked as a head doctor in a hospital and rehabilitation facility exclusively for children of Chernobyl victims to treat the extremely high prevalence of Tuberculosis and other severe health complications. (To specify: these were SECOND GENERATION of exposure).
- A lot of the kids in that facility were orphans, because their parents died young from health problems.
- My uncle’s wife was born in Pripyat. She was 1 year old when the disaster happened. Her parents were told to evacuate while given no information about what happened. They had to pack up their things and rush out to an unfamiliar city with their baby, never to see the rest of their belongings, apartment, or hometown again.
- When I was a kid, it became so common to see weirdly mutated animals and insects that even 2-3 year olds would make jokes about “Chernobyl mosquitos” and I wouldn’t even flinch seeing occasional giant bugs, dark frogs, weird-looking dogs.
- We’d frequently hear of nearby farms having issues with their animals being born too mutated to survive or random outbreaks from contaminated water / food. Crops would randomly fail. People would get poisoned on a regular basis. This all got less common as I grew up.
- My mother still remembers being a little girl, 10 years old, and looking outside from their balcony at the clouds blowing over from Chernobyl that day. People were told to not go outside and to shut all the windows, but not given an explanation as to why. My mother swears that the rain looked different. They weren’t able to go and buy more food for the kitchen for multiple days.
Anyway - nuclear safety isn’t a joke. I don’t understand how this level of carelessness can happen after Chernobyl and Fukushima.
https://www.404media.co/power-companies-are-using-ai-to-build-nuclear-power-plants/
art by Daniel Warren Johnson
#FuckICE
There is One Fediverse. There are a Million Pickleball Courts.
OK, maybe not a million, but over 100,000 and growing fast. And they are displacing tennis courts, because you can get four pickleball courts where one tennis court existed, and more and more people think that’s a good thing.
— by @…
:mastodon:
The Trump administration is providing the names of all air travelers to immigration officials,
substantially expanding its use of data sharing to expel people under deportation orders.
Under the previously undisclosed program, the Transportation Security Administration provides a list multiple times a week to Immigration and Customs Enforcement of travelers who will be coming through airports.
ICE can then match the list against its own database of people subject to deporta…
Over the past two months the U.S. has blown up at least 20 boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
“80 people have been killed in what are extrajudicial executions under international law,” says Juan Pappier, Americas deputy director at Human Rights Watch.
The Pentagon claims the boats were carrying drugs but officials have acknowledged they don’t know who has been killed.
The U.S.now has 15,000 military personnel in the region.
US companies are gathering for the spoils.
One contender, the Guardian has learned, is Gothams LLC, a politically connected contractor that won a $33m contract to help run the notorious south Florida detention center nicknamed
“Alligator Alcatraz”,
where immigrants are housed in tents and trailers.
Documents and three people familiar with the plans say that the contractor had an “inside track” to secure what might be the most lucrative contract it’s ever had.
Bu…
Lauren Boebert is vulnerable -- she's is in Congress because of just 𝟱𝟰𝟲 𝘃𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀
And now she's spreading a sinister conspiracy that 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗛𝗮𝗸𝗲𝗲𝗺 𝗝𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘀 “𝗥𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗻”
-- Democrats 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 be killed as a result! Here's why:
Her theory is based on the ideas of Holocaust denier David Icke,
who claims that Jews and powerful people across the globe are disguised reptilians working to 𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺.
👉 When your enemies are inhuman it is …
Here's what the doctor ordered https://mstdn.social/@mcnado/115709466867787148