Like, I totally see the idea of saying that the MENA plus Europe equals a "post-Roman" world. That makes perfect sense. The problem is that people take this distinction between "European" and "Oriental" that's actually just a racialization of "Christian" vs "Muslims", and try to apply it to Jews.

That would imply the entire coastal habitable zone of North Africa and most of the Middle East are European!

oh my god: a trump-endorsed candidate lost the GOP primary to a guy who suspended his campaign last month: www.politico.com/news/2026/08... trump completely washed, juiceless, cooked, it's over, lamest of the lame ducks, many people are saying it

Trump-backed candidate in battleground Michigan district loses to opponent who dropped out

Amir Hassan lost to Tom Smith, who had suspended his campaign but is now jumping back into the race for the purple 8th District.

politico.com

The Downballot@the-downballot.com · 21h ago

Seems like an upset might be brewing in the GOP primary in #MI08 to take on Dem Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet. Trump endorsed Amir Hassan, but he currently trails an absolute nobody who suspended his campaign a month ago by a wide margin.

The Sultan of Oman:

Mr. Krabs: Hello, I Like Money

Alt: Mr. Krabs: Hello, I Like Money

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The Decider@vibinthrghhistory.bsky.social · 3h ago

Oman continues to rack up points

Entering the war in December 1941 after the Soviets were surprise attacked in June 1941 is not 'a bit at the end' in the math used by people who can count, Lizzy.

I mean, the Somali pirates did this, though, at a small scale - with 'charge ransoms' as the business model. 'Charge tolls' of course is basically the sophisticated version of the same strategy. To the degree they stopped, it was because navies made them stop.

Perez Hilton pretending he respects privacy?

Is He Kidding? Dr. McCoy & Hikaru Sulu

Alt: Is He Kidding? Dr. McCoy & Hikaru Sulu

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Molly Knight@mollyknight.bsky.social · 5h ago

Perez Hilton releasing a statement requesting privacy is WILD. I hope he is ok but come on. After he recovers I hope he is humbled and apologizes to the people he went after when their mental health was in crisis, starting with Britney Spears.

After Heath Ledger died Perez Hilton sold shirts on his website saying “why couldn’t it have been Britney?” He made a living off making her life a living hell: nypost.com/2021/02/15/p...

Perez Hilton knows he made Britney Spears’ life a living hell

Notorious gossip columnist expresses regret following the release of the “Framing Britney Spears” documentary.

nypost.com

Molly Knight@mollyknight.bsky.social · 5h ago

Perez Hilton releasing a statement requesting privacy is WILD. I hope he is ok but come on. After he recovers I hope he is humbled and apologizes to the people he went after when their mental health was in crisis, starting with Britney Spears.

He really does vote a lot with the Dems even when he talks like a Republican, it's one of the reasons he's more Manchin than Sinema.

The Hill@thehill.com · 5h ago

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) says he will vote against acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination to serve in the role permanently, putting more pressure on Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) to limit GOP defections on the high-profile nominee.

Please do build a wall around Alabama, nobody wants your kind .

эрих хонеккер

Alt: Erich Honecker

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Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 5h ago

Tuberville: "If we don't straighten out this country's voting and immigration system, we're not gonna make it. It's gonna be over. I'm gonna go back to Alabama and hey, we might build a 30-foot wall around our state."

Dude a woman was set on fire, temples have been attacked, Jewish people have been attacked on the streets in america and other countries, they murdered Jews at the beach in Australia....why the fuck are you lying?

China (and before it, Japan) is similar but on an even more behemoth scale. You cannot have a world economy where everyone runs trade surpluses, and no one has discovered a method of development that *doesn't* stem from export booms.

Gorbachev brain is very real. People can't accept a major change even when they see it or when it follows from actions as night into day.

Михаил Горбачев: Новогоднее обращение

Alt: Михаил Горбачев: Новогоднее обращение

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The Dude@jurisdudence.bsky.social · 5h ago

People really think there’s any chance of returning to the status quo ante with regard to Iran, Hormuz, and American hegemony in general? Really? Still?

ICE has now spent over $2.2 BILLION on purchasing 4 private prisons from CoreCivic, with the company banking half a billion dollars on the most recent sale. Of course, ICE will not actually operate these facilities; CoreCivic keeps the contracts to run these places for the foreseeable future.

Also the Thirty Years War, which was propped up for very similar reasons, with both outside involvement and maximum destruction with fairly minimal expense in terms of sustaining it. Drones are the new pike and shot armies for that.

Zoomer Antimillenarian@surcomplicated.bsky.social · 5h ago

I don’t know who is going to be king of the ashes in the Persian Gulf and neither do any of you. It may well be some future regime that doesn’t even exist right now. Your model of how long and ugly this can get should be the Second Congo War.

Leads to some of the most efficient horrors in the entire book, with the Race scientists doing it much creepier when they're not pervs, they're just doing the same note that the 60s Planet of the Apes series did very well. Aka 'treat humans like you treat experimental animals.'

Matt Darling@besttrousers.bsky.social · 5h ago

I remember @hntdove.bsky.social books had stuff similar to this. The aliens were shocked that humans could procreate at any point instead of having a seasonal cycle.

And of course the reality that a suboptimal reality is one with no real appeal happens all the time in the real world. Aka "Russian history since Ivan the Terrible woke up after a really bad day."

Red Army Dance Performance

Alt: Red Army Dance Performance

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux@bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 5h ago

Beginning to feel like I need to budget a week on the blog for a military primer on 'how the US Navy is the load-bearing pillar of your ability to eat bananas and of folks in developing countries to eat at all.' Not saying that is an optimal situation, merely that it is the situation.

If that's the logic by which states deserve to exist you're really not going to like how colonialism rigs that system against the entire global south, man. Maybe just don't even try to invoke high-sounding principle in favor of 'Israelis treating Palestinians like Turks do Kurds is much more evil.'

🇸🇪🇺🇦 The Supreme Court of Sweden upheld the previous ruling and ordered the transfer to Ukraine of the confiscated, sanctions-hit vessel *Caffa* from Russia’s "shadow fleet."

A key element of the genuine article versus the pop culture element is that each city had its own specific cults and there were the Pan-Hellenic Twelve Olympians on top of that. Rather more like modern Indian Hinduism in a few ways than Christianity or Islam.

Seth D. Michaels@sethdmichaels.bsky.social · 7h ago

this is very cool, a lot of fun to read - and one of the many takeaways from it is that Homer is already sort of "non-canon" vis-a-vis previous Greek religious practice, as is a lot of what i'd call the "D'Aulaire's model" of "Greek mythology" that we've gotten in the modern west

Aeldari Empire: "Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty Mon-Keigh." The Emperor, M31: "So yes, war against the xenos, especially the Eldar. It is *not* because I tried to get laid and they turned me down."

Doc Benway@docbenway.bsky.social · 5h ago

I am kind of tickled at the idea that humanity becomes generally known around the galaxy as “those motherfuckers” because of an unfortunate first contact scenario

Reminder that Dr. Daou there literally has Phalange family and knows all about being pro-fascist and literal actual fascist.

uosdɯᴉS ɐuɐꓷ 🦄@danacorn.bsky.social · 5h ago

We’ve noticed. That’s why I’ve started regarding leftists as pro-fascist.

In my own universe I have aliens calling the Sun 'Tamir', with Earth as 'Tamir III.' They call their own homeworld Shuhar IV by the same standard or Bizjarra (which literally translates to 'Home') if they get more sentimental about it.

AN/PRC-148 MBITRsweet Symphony@classywarfare.gobirds.online · 5h ago

Personally I’m a big fan of the “Star-number” naming convention where Earth is called Sol 3

This, like the Iran War and the reality that North Korea gets to act with impunity, *does* mean a nuclear proliferation future is likelier than it should be and it's hard to argue against it. It's also going to be fewer countries than people think because nuclear programs are expensive and hard.

@comtechdiagnostics.bsky.social · 15h ago

We owe Ukraine security Ukraine was the third-largest nuclear power in the world. Thousands of nuclear arms had been left by Moscow after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Ukraine decided to denuclearize, and in exchange, the U.S., U.K. and Russia would guarantee Ukraine's security in 1994

(It’s cause they didn’t vote for Kamala and desperately want to ease their guilty conscience by showing the libs would have done the same)

Nied@nied.bsky.social · 8h ago

Something I've noticed is that there's a section of the left who've been desperate to find a way to prove VBNMW people are hypocrites. They thought they had it with Fetterman, they thought they had it with Mamdani.

Iran literally wants to make money hand over fist from a closed strait, US withdrawal won't change that. They're looking at it with dollar signs in their eyes and they've got a taste of it.

Which is also true of a very high number of cultures around the world, including a great many Indigenous Americans. Either 'the people' or 'real people.'

Materialist Gnostic@walmsley.bsky.social · 6h ago

there's a bit in The Faith of Beasts where the protagonist notes that a lot of alien species have a name for themselves that translates to "The People"

Also this is politics, lying politely to the camera for the rubes is a big part of the business, that's what they mean by 'optics.'

Doc Benway@docbenway.bsky.social · 6h ago

Saw somebody complaining that Stevens probably didn’t mean it when she said she was happy to back El-Sayed and to that I ask you to think back to when you were in kindergarten two or three weeks ago and remember that the teacher made you apologize for hitting Timmy even if you thought he deserved it

If he had that kind of awareness he wouldn't be trying to be modern day Pablo de Santa Maria, so....

Joel S.@joelhs.bsky.social · 8h ago

Ben Shapiro probably does not know enough history to even know this, but the way he is talking about Muslims as a nation within the nation who can never be integrated is almost verbatim what European nationalists said about Jews in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.