news

I’m not necessarily celebrating but I’m certainly not sad

by
charlie kirk at a podium with a large backdrop that reads "exposing critical racism tour" behind him
charlie kirk at a podium with a large backdrop that reads "exposing critical racism tour" behind him

I’m not one to “not speak ill of the dead.” They’re not around to care.

Charlie Kirk was a piece of shit.

He said gun deaths every year were an acceptable price to pay for keeping the second amendment in tact (in Salt Lake City no less).1

He called MLK Jr “awful” and said ““We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”2

He was a huge supporter of the Israeli genocide of Palestinian people, and received praise from Netanyahu.3

I can’t go through all the examples. I simply don’t have the time.

What I’m actually upset about is actually the virtue signaling and platitudes that have come out of it. Bluesky is a hotbed of this, having become the de facto refuge for moderate democrats who have been finally driven out of the screaming nightmare that is twitter.

Charlie Kirk called me a ‘lunatic’ and a ‘prostitute’ and demanded I be deported. Nothing, *nothing*, justifies killing him, or robbing his kids of their dad. We don’t know the identity or motive of the shooter but murder can *never* be the response to political disagreements.— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) September 10, 2025 at 5:58 PM

Yes, he had a wife and kids. He might have been an adoring husband and a wonderful father. I don’t really care. So was Heinrich Himmler.4 It is possible to feel some form of sympathy for the loss of a father while also not sugarcoating the fact that said father was a bit a bigoted bastard.

"I have never killed a man,
but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
— Clarence Darrow


This business of flying flags at half mast? Words of soft, careful reverence by the likes of Obama? It’s a somber circus. A performance I’d be pissed off to have paid for.

Why are flags being lowered for this man? Why aren’t they lowered for the five children that die every day in America to gun-related violence?5 Because those children are black. Because it’s often “gang related.” It’s sad when a white guy who espoused hate dies, but black children who are the victim of circumstance, of a system designed to trap and punish them, that’s just “the way it is.” One Palestinian child is killed every hour6, but that’s somewhere else. Far away. So that doesn’t matter?

Fuck that.

Sometimes you need to think. Really stop everything else you’re doing, sit down, and think. Think about what you are asking. You are asking me to feel outraged and upset at this man being killed simply because he was a public political figure. I am sad every day. I am angry every day. I’m upset every day. At how this country’s ruling class treats its poor. At how it has failed and continues to fail, by design, black and other people of color. At its direct funding for the murder of innocent children in Palestine. At its treatment of trans people, of queer people. The inability for people to afford to get life saving medical attention.

I have plenty of outrage. I’m not wasting a single ounce of it on Charlie fucking kirk.

–np

  1. Some of Charlie Kirk’s most controversial takes ↩︎
  2. How Charlie Kirk Plans to Discredit Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Act ↩︎
  3. Who was Charlie Kirk? What we know about the shooting and the suspect ↩︎
  4. Himmler’s letters ↩︎
  5. New Report Highlights U.S. 2022 Gun-Related Deaths: Firearms Remain Leading Cause of Death for Children and Teens, and Disproportionately Affect People of Color ↩︎
  6. GAZA: 20,000 CHILDREN KILLED IN 23 MONTHS OF WAR – MORE THAN ONE CHILD KILLED EVERY HOUR  ↩︎

SolForge Fusion digital card game adds NFTs to the surprise of customers

by

SolForge Fusion announced it would be joining the Solana blockchain network via Twitter on April 29th, less than two weeks after the game was launched in early access on Steam.

SolForge, a digital card game designed by Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield and former MTG Pro Brian Kibler, was first released into early access in 2013 following a successful Kickstarter campaign that raised over $400,000. It stayed in early access for three years before its official release in 2016, but was shut down a year later with StoneBlade CEO and creator of the popular deckbuilding game “Ascension” Justin Gary citing only vague reasons for the decision.

The game was kept alive briefly until early 2019 by a group of dedicated fans running an unofficial server called ReForged. The unofficial client was taken down after the fans responsible were contacted by Gary and told to cease operations.

In 2021, a physical sequel called SolForge Fusion was announced on Kickstarter incorporating the unique algorithmically generated decks present in another of Garfield’s games, Keyforge. SolForge Fusion also promised that the same decks could be used online or in person by registering unique deck codes.

In November 2023, a campaign for the digital version of SolForge Fusion was announced and funded, but no mention was made within any of the campaigns that NFTs would be part of the game. Some users took issue with the announcement such as one reviewer on Steam who stated: “This is completely blindsiding. I do not play games that feature NFTs and I would have never given money to this project at any point had I known that’s what they were planning to do.”

I’m not sure if it’s required for these types of decisions to be disclosed ahead of time, but it certainly rubs me the wrong way. Crowdfunding has always been a very mixed bag. Paying for the possibility of a good game is a financial gamble that customers are willing to take because they want to believe in you. Not cluing in the people who made your game possible in the first place feels like a form of abuse. Of course, if you’re receiving a fat paycheck from investors to do it who cares about those chumps?