Pull yourself up by your bootstraps! >> I don't have boots Well, pull yourself up by your shoelaces! >> I don't have shoes What do you wear on your feet? >> I don't have feet
Chris Bertram@crookedfootball.bsky.social · 10h agoThe undeserving poor are the double amputees who don't run marathons, presumably.
"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they've tried everything else" -- attributed to Winston Churchill, but probably apocryphal
This principle (Roko's basilisk) has been seriously discussed. Eyeroll "What if we make an AI that is hella smarter than us so it enslaves humanity, but also it is like super-mad at people who knew supersmart AI was possible but didn't work tirelessly to bring it about, so it tortures us forever?"
Faine Greenwood@faineg.com · 4d agoI wrote about how the midterms truly prove how much Americans hate data centers and the big tech and AI companies that fund them. And how, like the Ancient Mariner, the US tech industry now must wear the rotting, squawking albatross of MAGA around their necks, due to their own stupid actions.
Holy crap, there's a lot in here I hadn't considered about the job for Jeffries getting even *harder* now that the caucus is much larger and more diverse. Yikes. Great details
@NewsJennifer (Jennifer Schulze)@newsjennifer.bsky.social · 3d ago"Whatever else you think about the race for Speaker, you will not replace the man poised to become the first Black Speaker after he helped win seats in the Deep South in the year SCOTUS overturned voting rights. Nor should you want to." Always read @emptywheel.bsky.social:
Every two years we run an excruciating national experiment which serves primarily to uncover new sources of polling error. This exercise also reinforces a vast eagerness to jump to conclusions, blithely ignoring the very concept of "margin of error."
This is the money shot. "So DOJ is now essentially creating a new way of charging people?"
Anna Bower@annabower.bsky.social · 2w agoMJ: So DOJ is now essentially creating a new way of charging people....? This is very concerning....throwing gasoline on what defendants are saying about this being unusual. Why would you not just want a MJ to make a PC finding as you would in every other case?
Just the rare reminder that good still exists in the world, if we let it, if we see it, if we nurture it, if we *be* it
Team Talarico@teamtalaricohq.bsky.social · 3w agoTexas was built by hope. By people who had no business believing — but believed anyway. To every Texan who’s ever wondered if anyone in power is paying attention: We are taking our state back. Because a little bit of hope is a dangerous thing.
Reposting this to bookmark forever. I should put this on a T-shirt, since my T-shirts seem to be getting larger and larger in my later years
Jennifer Shin - WTAF@jennifershin.bsky.social · 3w agoThis 👇 had me yelling YES!! over my coffee this morning. A decade of feeling like the only adult in a room full of 10 year old bullies.
I'm waiting for the day when all the Mar-A-Lago plastic surgery faces converge
Sounds like something a Domestic Enemy would say
When you combine Elon's A.I. "Grok" with "Super Intelligence," you get Groyper Intelligence
I burned 4 zucchini fritters while watching @ericidle.bsky.social on Seth Myers this week, hawking his latest bestseller "Idle In Provence: A Brief History Of Thyme" Don't tell me how "Spamalot Diaries" comes out- my library reclaimed their copy. I hope that show went OK. Much more at Alt text. Ta
![Behold the wreckage from successively burning FOUR otherwise perfect zucchini-potato-onion fritters, as I was continually drawn away to watch ten engrossing minutes of legendary writer Eric Idle interviewed on Seth Myers this week. You can find the video on public sites like YouTube.
For anyone left on Earth who may be unfamiliar, you can find Mr. Idle by searching the Internet for "Who said, 'I'm not dead yet.'" He's certainly never been not deader than today. He's hawking his 'latest bestseller' [what an incredible humble brag, by the way] "Idle in Provence: A Brief History of Thyme."
Beware the misimpression that this is a cooking book. I've not read it yet, but I am strongly pushing it to family and friends as a Christmas present (beloved friends) or belated birthday present (family, you bastards). The gist of the interview is that this latest book is about homesteading in the rugged unimproved southern terrain of an impoverished Mediterranean county, by which of course we mean France.
Idle would seem to be following in famous literary footsteps of comedians who moved to France to Get Serious and also Get Away. And by footsteps I mean the Lilliputian footsteps of David Sedaris. I should mention that on the basis of this interview it appears Mr Idle thought of this far earlier (1971) and much more Get Seriously than Mr. Sedaris, who has made it known in print forever that he had been seriously challenged merely by a visit to the dentist.
Anyway I greatly anticipate reading about the building, equipping and furnishing of The Shack-teau of Idleness, visited by celebrity Thinkers like Penny Marshall on hash brownies (apparently true).
And if one must read or watch Eric Idle while cooking, please turn your hob down a notch. Or set an egg timer and admit (as I do) that I am perfectly capable of absolutely forgetting what I am doing in less than one soft egg. Gone in sixty seconds, as they say, just like a Sedaris dentist pulling teeth.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:m6jogbvlpng372vh2w3vzlon/bafkreih5wmdjfftayapwmyneenw35ls22u35xnf3rmorrtogpgt3rv7vxi)
"Listen to this shit," like it says right in the ad. Unfucking believable
Kevin M. Kruse@kevinmkruse.bsky.social · last mo."Fuck that." "I'm Sherrod Brown and I approve of this message."
Keep this chart handy for the next 50 years, or however long it takes to climb out of this pending economic implosion.
emptywheel@emptywheel.bsky.social · last mo.The Biggest Economic Bet in U.S. History from @adamtooze.bsky.social adamtooze.substack.com/p/the-bigges...
Having irretrievably broken the norms which enable international cooperation, the US will now and forever be considered unreliable, despite whatever future protestations that "We're okay now, we promise!" We will always be in recovery from addiction to an inane populism.
Bookmarking this, just in case there's a chance this is fake. I have every confidence that it is not.
David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis is amazing; everything is very stupid. futurism.com/artificial-i...
In other cultures, there were mass eliminations of people like this
Michael J. Stern@michaeljstern.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis is what people voted for. Then they complain endlessly . . . and vote for it again. Geez people, look at what is actually happening, not what you're being told, and recalibrate.
This should be the wall poster of every child, tween and early teen in the world who still holds out any hope that we can save the planet
CosmicRami 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️@rami.spaceaustralia.com · 2mo agoAn incredible image, and overall winner of this year's Australian Geographic Nature Photography award. Using a DJI Mavic 3 Pro (drone), Matt Deakin captured an extremely rare moment - seeing a critically endangered Sawfish in the wild and passing by a Turtle, off the Pilbara coast in WA.
Holy hell, read that highlighted bit. Wholesale vote rejection scheme is being prepared *right now* according to whistleblower
Matt Novak@paleofuture.bsky.social · 2mo agoThis is pretty fucking wild. I had assumed in a worst case scenario he would target blue zip codes and toss ballots based on technicalities but this is even worse than I imagined.
Thought I'd point out that with my ceremonial spilling of coffee over my desk, it is now officially Monday.
Money shot: "indexing your theory of change to the social platforms is a losing long-term position, because you are building on an asset that is fake at the top, alienating at the bottom, and owned by someone else in the middle." --holy heck I may have to subcribe to substack now
Erin McKean@emckean.bsky.social · 2mo agoI found this essay through @lifewinning.com's Perfect Sentences newsletter (buttondown.com/perfectsente...) but honestly it's brimming with absolute bangers: drlennecefer.substack.com/p/why-i-dele... "Systems do not change because a million people were briefly furious."
If there were such a thing Ecumenical Beatification, I think Dolly Parton might be near the head of the line. I can easily see myself praying to Saint Dolly for cosmic guidance and dirt-level replies.
THIS IS THE RARE PERSON WHO IS BRINGING TRUMPWORLD TO HEEL IN THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM. SHE REALLY KNOWS HER SHIT.
Katie Phang@katiephang.bsky.social · 2mo agoEXCLUSIVE: The latest update in my lawsuit against Todd Blanche. More incompetence on display in Blanche's latest filing that once again refuses to produce the unredacted handwritten FBI notes that implicate Felon Trump, cites to the wrong law, AND yet asks for more delay: youtu.be/YFqbwxJXqpI
THIS IS THE RARE PERSON BEATING TRUMPWORLD IN THE COURTS. SHE KNOWS HER SHIT.
Katie Phang@katiephang.bsky.social · 2mo agoNEW: A Florida grand jury finds the DeSantis Administration misappropriated $10 million in taxpayer funds when it diverted the money to the Casey DeSantis’-related nonprofit, Hope Florida Foundation. I track the money flow in this outrageous corruption and grift! youtu.be/JDOh1GUZrfs?...
If these things do come in three's, I've got a suggestion for the third one
Every. Single. Musician. should come to the funeral. I hope they have multiple sports stadiums reserved
Kate Bevan@katebevan.com · 3mo agooh, this is so lovely. What a gorgeous, generous message from the family to all of us.
