The other shenanigans was that the secretary of state allowed other petitioners with the same issues to proceed on the ballot, namely marijuana and gambling referendums. The organizers should have been on their best behavior because the state was always going to selectively enforce the rules here.

The schools doing okay financially aren’t the ones cutting these programs for cost-saving reasons. In bigger state universities eliminating programs, the cuts are largely political. School admins are worried that state legislators will target school budgets in the near future if cuts aren’t made to “useless” subjects in the humanities and social science.

In regional state universities and private liberal arts schools, however, the situation really is dire. They’re cutting to survive. The US has started to experience a decline in college enrollment. Universities have known it would happen since the late 2000s, but not in the way it has.

Big universities are growing or maintaining class sizes, which is putting tremendous pressure on the regional and liberal arts schools as the available students evaporate. It’s pushed the timeline for change up at many universities and it’s only going to get worse.

Do I feel sorry for university admins? No, they should’ve taken action sooner, with real wind-down plans for students. But we’re going to continue to see cuts to small programs for decades to come; it’s unavoidable.

Shapiro has a sexual harassment coverup allegation (for a close aide, not himself) and what appears to be serious mismanagement of a stabbing case, where a woman’s death was initially ruled a murder, but ultimately his office refused to re-examine the case. It’s going before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and might be heard before the election. Harris doesn’t need an October Surprise to derail her momentum if it makes Shapiro look bad.

I did the same thing. The first privacy-oriented service I heard about was Proton. And, to be fair, they’re quite good. But the email search issues and struggles I had with their bridge eventually turned me off.

I left for mailbox(.)org and haven’t looked back. It’s great Proton has so many cool services, but the last thing I want is to get dependent on one company again, not after how hard it was to get away from Google.

I kinda don’t want to dip my toes in this, but here goes:

I agree that it’s occasionally a breath of fresh air. The issue I’ve always had with Hexbear is they’ve more or less replaced one version of American (and to a lesser extent European) exceptionalism with another. Where American nationalists consider America to be exceptionally great, Hexbear considers it to be exceptionally evil. They routinely attribute domestic incidents in different countries to American meddling–regardless of evidence–even when those events either achieve nothing for American geostrategic goals or actively harm them. America as the “great Satan,” etc.

Just an example because I remember it: Imran Khan lost an internal power struggle in Pakistan. He was probably the most west-friendly candidate left there, but Hexbear blamed a CIA coup https://hexbear.net/post/186331

In the same vein, they permit or even encourage Chinese aggression against the Philippines, within the Philippines’ own exclusive economic zone. You can’t substitute one form of imperialism for another. It’s a trap I see a lot of leftists fall into.

I think most of 'em are alright. Just growing into leftist thought still and grappling with the moshpit that is international politics. Also they’re funny lol

Thank you so much for this information. Your passion is contagious. I’m going to dive into all of these sources in the morning!

Have a wonderful day/evening/night!

So, as someone who has used the Internet since its very earliest days, what would you say about what the Internet is like today versus back then? Was it better? Worse? Any major online events that you can recall from that period?

I grew up at the very tail end of the old forums and certainly after the decline and death of old school chat rooms. Most of them died or went inactive while I was in high school/college. The version of the internet older adults used is almost alien to me.

Hell, today’s Internet is on its way to being alien too.