Dan Nexon

Our policy toward Ukraine is not only shameful but also very, very stupid.

Oh I hated the world building we got in the film. So I don’t doubt it. Definitely better for scaffolding for other people than wherever JW would’ve taken it.

But TBF I know conservatives who confuse trappings with ideology about lots of different SF properties. ;-)

Which is why it’s an interesting case. The whole point is to make “literal” the western-in-space motif. The Reavers are scary “savages,” there are horses, etc. But the Reavers aren’t “Indians” they’re the byproduct of a population control experiment, and the Alliance isn’t the Union either.

Except there’s not much ambiguity about the core planets in Firefly. Despite the trappings and names the structure is much more imperial exploitation than U.S. North-South relations.

True Warriors don’t care about political goals. They care about killing with maximum lethality.

F.D.A. Faces Upset Over Denials of New Drugs

NEW: Tension between rare disease families and the FDA are rising as the agency closes the door on a series of new drugs:

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/h...

Despite JW being horrible there are approximately zero indications that the rebellion in Firefly was in defense of slavery, on behalf of a rich landowning class, or any of the other things that would code it as sympathetic to Confederate ideology. Your example is just straight up fascist, no?

pretty convinced at this point that Joss is just an Omelas trap, except instead of paradise in exchange for a tortured child you get mid-plus to very good genre television in exchange for an unknown number of victimized actresses

i think there are plausibly cool things you can do in the Firefly universe and i hope someone who isn't Joss Whedon gets a chance to do them

ICE detains reporter Estefany Rodríguez in Nashville - Nashville Banner Reporter Estefany Rodríguez, detained by ICE with no arrest warrant, may face deportation. Her attorneys seek immediate review of the legality of her case.

ICE has arrested and detained a Nashville journalist who reported stories critical of ICE. She’s married to a U.S. citizen and has been seeking asylum here after fleeing death threats in Colombia because of her journalism there.

They’ve already sent her to Louisiana.

lots of dumb things about this but… who wants to tell him about why nations are a thing and how that relates to the unifying power of religion and specifically Christianity

I'm gonna try to provide the response w/the hope my BP doesn't go through the roof. It'll be fun they said, what could go wrong they said. What is being reported regarding the integration of MAVEN & Claude is different from how something like Iron Dome works. 1/

The use of AI to identify targets (without subsequent specific human confirmation) should be considered a war crime.

And by that I don't mean "we should make a rule" I mean that straightforward application of the existing rules would tell you that it is a war crime.

TBH I think if you get stoned out of your mind & decide you’re gonna explicitly make a western in space & commit to the bit so of course it’s after a civil war & the main character fought on the losing side & you import genre tropes that are lost cause-y that’s not literally endorsing the MOTLC.

The Warmonger Rebrand Rebranding the Department of Defense as the "Department of War" is one more proof of Trump II's bellicose intentions.

“After World War II, we never fought to win. The lawyers and bureaucrats put an end to that. Stabbed us in the back basically.”

Stuff I heard from every adult man I knew growing up in the 80s. Never true, newly relevant. I didn’t know about the Dolchstosslegende when I was fifteen.

bsky.app/profile/jaco...

Vance Puts MAGA Ideology Above All Else For the vice president, even white nationalists who target his Indian American wife don't merit disavowal

"Vance now spends every day of his life agitating for a society that sees the people he loves most in the world as undesirable foreigners who should be forcibly deported."

Great @bernybelvedere.bsky.social piece urging us to see Vance as a genuine ideologue:
www.theunpopulist.net/p/vance-puts...

There are two prominent Democratic senate candidates in Maine. One of them has stood up to Trump’s campaign against trans people and the other has an overtly Nazi tattoo that he replaced with a more subtly Nazi tattoo.

CNN: More than 1,000 civilians killed in Iran since war began, rights group reports By Helen Regan More than 1,000 people, including children, have been killed in Iran since the war began on Saturday, according to US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). The rights group said as of Tuesday afternoon ET, at least 1,097 civilians had been killed, including 181 children. More than 5,400 civilians, including 100 children, have been injured, HRANA reported. The group said its report is preliminary and is veritying hundreds more reported deaths.

At least 1,097 civilians had been killed in Iran so far, including 181 children.

The ADHD presidency would be a lot more amusing if it weren't fascistic and kleptocratic.

A Substack piece, detailing a lot of absolutely correct criticisms of the attack on Iran, entitled "Last Ride of the Neoconservatives?"

Maybe we need to stop using neoconservatives as a synonyms for militarists?*

The fact is that neocons were only one of many factions that promoted the invasion of Iraq. And a lot of people who got called neocons... weren't.

*And while I am confident this is NOT what Emma means, ((militarists))

Different Kurdish groups.

But yes no one should trust Trump.

Witkoff and Kushner Get an F in Diplomacy Inexperienced and overextended, Trump’s envoys have failed on three fronts.

Witkoff and Kushner Get an F in Diplomacy foreignpolicy.com/2026/03/03/w...

There is remarkably little appreciation of this inside he Washington Beltway.

We appear to even be saying -- so far as I can tell -- that US government employees and their dependents in those countries are on their own

Macron opens door to deploying French nuclear forces to European allies The plan is a “major evolution” of France’s deterrence posture, the president said in a long-awaited speech at the Île Longue naval base in Brittany.

In any normal week this would be a huge story. France moves toward extending a nuclear umbrella over European allies-- a major sign of declining credibility of US extended deterrence.
www.defensenews.com/global/europ...

The best time for this speech would have been during her confirmation hearings. The second best time is now.

The wheels are coming off the bus; better late than never.

Since I opposed both O's pre-2014 deportation policies & was, to put it mildly, disappointed by Biden's own record, I am not going to defend them. But if you think those policies are *worse* than the ones usually adopted by center-left governments in other "western" democracies... wow.

Things you might not be aware of:
– Biden functionally ended the war-on-terror drone program;
– Obama's second-term & Biden's trans policies;
– Civil-rights enforcement under both administrations;
– The political context of Obama's pre-2014 deportation policies and how they changed afterwards