#gizmodo

Once, I thought we had standards. Too low, but we had them.

It’s an article!

....and a trailer!!  ♣ ♣ ♣

✨📚 February Book Releases Are NOT Playing 📚✨

@gizmodo just dropped its list of 69 new sci-fi, fantasy & horror books coming this month. Swipe to see new speculative titles from Black and Indigenous authors we are particularly excited about.

🖤 Books to have on your radar: 🚀 The Daughter Who Remains — @nnediokorafor 🏥 The Hospital at the End of the World — @justinckey 🧠 The Body — @bcmorrow 🕵🏾‍♀️ The Johnson Four — @christinahammondsreed 🩸 Dead First — @comptonwrites 👑 Cleopatra: A Novel — @saaraelarifi 🎭 Night of the Mannequins — @stephengrahamjones 🌒 The Secret World of Maggie Grey — @authorgranger

These stories imagine what’s possible—and what’s coming.✨

📚 Shop these titles and more at www.sistahscifi.com or bookshop.org/shop/SistahScifi.

It's the usual you've already heard: people were confused that it wasn't just a hotel, how you had to put effort into it to get results back, that the staff and Imagineers worked real hard on it, there were people who liked it.

It's all the same defenses that clearly are hoping that you haven't watched the video, and probably they haven't either. Since, you know, the video basically dismantles all of those arguments one by one.

I will say it also attempts a slightly bafflingly progressive take on it, like saying stuff like:

"To many Star Wars fans who were able to check out Galactic Starcruiser during its short-lived existence, the attraction presented a chance to act on the frustration many share in their day to day lives of watching atrocities happen and feeling like there’s little we can do about them."

Which is pretty gross, right? Comparing 'going to a hotel on vacation' with 'fighting the good fight against the bad shit in the world'. I mean, especially when you consider one of the paths is joining with the fascists? Also it's owned by a billion-dollar corporation? Which even the article briefly points out...which is the point the article writer should of rethought their stance.

Now, more importantly, looking at the articles from Screen Rant and Gizmodo and I'm sure there's others, I'm sure people are wondering/thinking that Disney had a hand in this. And to be honest...

No, probably not. Well, not directly, at least.

Rather, these websites require access. Access to press releases, access to interviews, access to special events. So writing a puff piece defending Galactic Star Cruiser is a pretty safe bet to do, especially if you suspect that Disney is planning to still do something with the GSC. As has been pointed out, the building still remains intact, and a lot of the signage in the parks is still there. So if they reopen it as, say, a dining experience, then the website who wrote a puff piece defending the honor of the Halcyon is much more likely to be invited to opening night than Jenny Nicholson is.

Additionally, these days websites such as Screen Rant pay like crap, to the point where the only people willing to work on them are the true believers. It's like how game developers are some of the worst paid and most overworked dev teams, because the industry knows they can get true believers who want to Design Video Games in the doors.

So no, I doubt Disney is directly in anyone's ear about this. But rather, it's websites taking advantage of the situation to try and get into Daddy Disney's good graces. There are always useful idiots.

Lucas Ropek, writing in the popular technology site Gizmodo, is very upset at a gift Netanyahu gave Trump:

During his recent visit to the White House, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu gave President Donald Trump a rather bizarre gift: a pair of pagers. One of the pagers was reportedly gold, while the other was a normal one. The gift appears to have been a reference to the recent Israeli operation that used pagers and walkie-talkies rigged with explosives that Israel claimed were targeted at operatives of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah. The “pager attack” killed 42 people, including two children and two healthcare workers, while wounding another 2,800 people. The attacks targeted public areas, including cars, streets, and supermarkets, and many of the wounded suffered eye, hand, and brain injuries. Many survivors needed surgery, and some victims went blind or had to have their limbs amputated. One of the attacks killed an 11-year-old boy and an 8-year-old girl, along with a nurse. At a funeral for some victims, another electronic device attack was carried out by Israel, wounding more people. It’s unknown how many Hezbollah operatives the attack actually killed.  

These are outrageous lies. The pager attack killed 12 people and the following walkie-talkie attack killed 30. The only people who owned the pagers are radios were Hezbollah. None of the pagers killed more than one person, and certainly no single explosion killed two children and a healthcare worker. 

The vast majority of dead and wounded were Hezbollah members. Most estimates say over 3,000 Hezbollah members were injured. 500 Hezbollah members were sent to Iran alone for surgery and two teams of Iranian doctors flew to Lebanon to treat only Hezbollah members. The pagers were distributed only to Hezbollah members. 

This pro-Mangione design isn’t available on the internet anymore because UnitedHealth Group submitted a copyright complaint against it under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The painting has been removed from Teepublic, which allows artists to sell their own designs on merchandise like t-shirts and sweatshirts. But it’s not clear how UnitedHealth could claim they have rights to something that doesn’t involve any of its intellectual property.