Tootfinder

Andy Kim, a Democratic senator, said he was pepper sprayed by federal agents on Monday during a protest at a New Jersey detention facility.
Video posted on social mediashowed Kim receiving help from a volunteer who is seen pouring water in his eyes outside Delaney Hall in Newark,
where detainees are reportedly staging a hunger strike against poor conditions and denial of medical care.
Demonstrators clashed with immigration officers who used batons and pepper spray as they a…

OH! I forgot the whole "out of band" thing. Let me get into that.
When you put all this together you have a business owned by a church (or, in the Dutch case, an FFI) to interface with capitalism and then a community that's collectively controlled via the legal entity of a "church." (Again, I like the word "coven," but I'm trying to use the legal definition here.)
This gives you a community that exists partially outside of the dominant system. If this seems like a new idea, it is absolutely not. There are very insular religious communities all over. Many are really oppressive cults (go watch Wild Wild Country), others are insular religious communities (for which there is a lot of legitimate criticism, but I'm only talking about decipherability here) such as Haredim or Mennonites. In some ways Tribes match this also, with various tribal governments organizing things for members.
In all of these cases, there exists an element that is outside of the dominant system. This becomes somewhat "invisible." How well do you understand the inner workings of an Amish community? How much do you think a CEO cares or thinks about them?
There are many hidden worlds that only become revealed when they become a problem (such as when a cult leader tries to take over a county by spraying e. coli on a bunch of salad bars.) This can be good if you're trying to build a new society without attracting the attention, but insular communities can also permit abusive dynamics that could otherwise be identified by the larger society. So keep the risks in mind, and be active about preventing them. Hierarchy is dangerous, but hierarchy in hidden groups can be especially dangerous.

Heat stress exposure climbed from 16% to 22% worldwide over 50 years, study shows #environment

Heat stress exposure climbed from 16% to 22% worldwide over 50 years, study shows
The number of people exposed to dangerous heat stress worldwide has risen sharply over the past half-century, propelled by climate change, according to a study released Monday as Europe sweltered through a punishing heat wave.

Pope Leo XIV took direct aim at the power of Big Tech in his first encyclical on Monday (May 25), warning that artificial intelligence risks widening inequality, weakening democracy and undermining what it means to be human.
https://religionnews.com…

In his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV says AI must serve humanity, not the powerful few
VATICAN CITY (RNS) — ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ tackles the social, economic and political challenges associated with artificial intelligence.

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The Senate is due to begin voting as early as Monday on the nomination of Manhattan US attorney Jay Clayton,
Donald Trump’s pick to be the ⁠top US spy,
and he ⁠is expected to be approved within days despite a tense confirmation hearing.
If approved to be the director of national intelligence,
Clayton would fill a role vacated in June when Tulsi Gabbard stepped down after ⁠a tenure marked by clashes with congressional Democrats,
who accused her of advancing Trump…

Trump backs Pete Hegseth amid renewed tensions with Iran – live
Trump said he thinks his defense secretary ‘has done a great job’

Democrats' Jeffries and Mamdani wings face off in New York (Andrew Solender/Axios)
https://www.axios.com/2026/06/22/nyc-mamdani-goldman-lander-espaillat-jeffries
http://www.memeorandum.com/260622/p117#a260622p117

South Carolina has decided not to get involved in Donald Trump’s redistricting war.
The state Senate voted 24–20 Tuesday to leave their House districts alone for the upcoming midterm elections.
Twelve Republicans broke ranks to join all Democrat state senators in the decision -- which will likely save the state’s one blue seat held by Representative James Clyburn.
A few Republican legislators, such as state Senator Richard Cash, changed their votes due to timing.
Earl…

12 Republicans Break Ranks to Deal Major Loss to Trump
Some South Carolina state senators changed their position at the last minute.

The first record of the parable commonly known as the "Blind Men and the Elephant" showed up around 2500 years ago, in a Buddhist text from India. At this point it's pretty commonly known. I assume that most folks reading this will be familiar with some variation of it.
If not, it's essentially a story about people who have limited information making assertions about something: one man grabs a tail and says, "it's like a rope," another the trunk and says, "it's like a snake," a third the leg saying, "it's like a tree," and so on. Later variations are less kind to the men, having them not simply report their findings, but fight over them. The first English translation draws a parallel to religion.
This comes to mind for me, because social media has a tendency to incentivize us to make those hard assertions, to dig in, to argue our perspective as part of a spectacle. Free and federated social media isn't structurally that different from corporate media, so the incentive models built to maximize engagement by maximizing conflict tend to leak through the similarities in the user experience and the conditioning of other platforms.
I didn't really come here to critique the fediverse, but rather to remind everyone, "no one sees the whole fucking elephant." We are limited and there are necessarily some things so big they will never be individually comprehensible. Any system that relies on us all agreeing cannot possibly respond to those big things.
We can see that concretely if we look at the difference between "democratic unity" and "diversity of tactics." In the first model, everyone either agrees or gets forced to behave as though they agree (at least on some issues). That's how liberal democracy works. Diversity of tactics (which systematically described, for example, in the "St Paul Principles"), on the other hand, let's people align on goals without needing to agree on exactly how to achieve them. The reality being that often there are multiple "correct" paths, and sometimes those paths can only work if multiple paths are taken in unison.
No one sees the whole elephant. We won't even see the elephant later. People will still be arguing about the elephant long after it's gone. But if you want to get rid of the elephant, you're gonna need to accept that you can't comprehend it all and you're gonna have to figure out a way to work together that doesn't require a unified approach.

Democrats may cast last-minute ballots for California governor.
“There’s a little bit of, whoever’s in the lead some Democrats are choosing to vote for … but people don’t know who that person is,” Grose said,
noting that “some of that [could start] to go away” as the race tightens.
An indication that Democrats are starting to consolidate around Xavier Becerra, the former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary, came Tuesday in a new survey released by the California Demo…

Democrats may vote at last minute for governor. What it will mean
With the top two candidates in the primary advancing, many Democratic-leaning voters appear to be waiting for a clear leader to emerge, political analysts say.