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ProfGadfly

@profgadfly.bsky.social

Historian, podcaster (isn't everyone?), ex-professor, Canadian and American, consumer of ridiculous amounts of tv and film, grumpy person. https://liesagreedupon.com/

1052 Posts507 Follower301 Folgt
Admirable Women@admirablewomen.bsky.social · 9h ago

Geologist & astronaut Dr. Kathryn Sullivan: the "most vertical human" in history. + From space: 1st American woman to walk in space, 11 Oct 1984 + To the deepest point of Earth's seabed: 1st woman to dive to the Challenger Deep (🔽 35,853 ft), 7 June 2020 She was born #OTD in 1951. #WomenInSTEM

An official NASA studio portrait of Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan (born 1951) during her early career as a space shuttle astronaut. Taken ahead of her groundbreaking October 1984 mission where she became the first American woman to perform a spacewalk, this image carries deep historical significance for women in STEM fields. The composition is a classic, vertically oriented portrait focusing on Sullivan from the waist up. She stands positioned at a three-quarter angle while turning her face back toward the viewer. Sullivan looks just to the right of the camera lens with a warm, confident smile and a gentle, approachable expression. Her brown hair is styled in a voluminous, feathered 1980s shoulder-length cut with soft curls framing her forehead. She wears a professional navy blue short-sleeved polo shirt featuring a prominent, authentic red and white NASA "worm" logo patch on the left breast pocket. In the background on her right stands a large, vibrant United States flag with its stars and stripes prominently displayed. To her left, softly out of focus on a table, sits a scale desktop model of a NASA Space Shuttle attached to its external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters. The mood is formal, patriotic, and inspiring.A candid photograph of pioneering American astronaut and oceanographer Dr. Kathryn D. Sullivan (born 1951) celebrating her historic June 2020 return from the Challenger Deep—the deepest known point in Earth’s oceans. This moment solidified her legacy as the first person to both walk in space and reach the ocean floor. The outdoor shot frames Sullivan off-center against a deep blue, slightly undulating ocean that stretches out to a hazy, light-clouded horizon line under bright sunlight. Sullivan stands leaning slightly out from a white oceanic vessel hatch or submersible entry point. She smiles broadly with triumphant energy, looking off-camera to the left. Her left arm is fully extended outward, flashing an enthusiastic thumbs-up sign. On the far left edge of the frame, another crew member's hand wearing a black textured glove mirrors her thumbs-up gesture. She wears a cobalt blue utility flight suit featuring a golden rectangular patch over her right chest. Her light brown hair is short and windblown, and she wears rectangular tortoiseshell sunglasses. Thick, bright yellow heavy-duty rigging straps slice vertically through the left foreground, framing her body, while a curved metallic silver handrail sits to her left. The overall mood is joyful, victorious, and adventurous.
ProfGadfly@profgadfly.bsky.social · 6d ago

This is so enraging. Not Sargent, but the whole, "Wait. What!?! You mean if the press refuses to kowtow and does it's job, they might actually perform their sacred, civic role in democratic society? Why didn't anyone point this out earlier?"

Greg Sargent@gregsargent.bsky.social · 6d ago

Trump's press ban actually shows he's a weak, diminished figure, says @paulwaldman.bsky.social: "To find a president at this level, you’ve got to go back to Nixon in Watergate or Bush in a historic financial crisis." On the pod, Paul is so good on Trump's shrinking: newrepublic.com/article/2158...

ProfGadfly@profgadfly.bsky.social · 2w ago

Seriously? Anyone telling themselves that boycotting is some sort of noble, principled action that makes them especially virtuous is next level delusional. Would people stop trying to make themselves exceptional!?! Just be an average, participating member of the polis.

Senator Paula Simons 🇨🇦@senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social · 2w ago

I keep meeting smart informed Albertans who tell me they do not intend to vote, because they don’t want to legitimize the process, or because they know the premier is not bound by the results. But what if making us give up on voting is the whole point? My argument to vote - no matter the absurdity.

Jay Troyer@gr8flbluejay.bsky.social · 4w ago

Criselda Vasquez, American, The New American Gothic, 2017, oil on canvas, 72 x 48 in, private collection The artist's father, portrayed in the painting, was kidnapped by ICE on 31 March 2026

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Robert Reich@rbreich.bsky.social · 4w ago

Wages of unionized workers are 13% higher than their nonunion counterparts. But unions also set a higher pay standard that all workers enjoy. In high-union-density states, median household income is $12,000 higher than in low-union-density states. This is why unions are vital.

Bill Grueskin@bgrueskin.bsky.social · last mo.

Bari Weiss "praised the story during the network's daily editorial meeting ... Weiss even personally directed that the headline be tweaked to mention that El-Sayed had deleted tweets referencing the Sept 11 terrorist attacks." via @oliverdarcy.bsky.social www.status.news/p/cbs-news-e...

CBS’ El-Sayed Scandal

The Bari Weiss-led outlet is being pummeled by a storm of outrage over a story about Abdul El-Sayed—and Status has learned that within the network, some staffers have raised the matter with standards.

status.news

Bill Grueskin@bgrueskin.bsky.social · last mo.

CBS News has posted a breathless story about how two El-Sayed tweets they just discovered "invite scrutiny" ... ...And then you read the tweets and uh, they don't seem that out of line, especially for someone who has a medical degree. www.cbsnews.com/news/abdul-e...

Meanwhile, El-Sayed's past references to the deadly attacks have continued to surface, including two deleted social media posts verified by CBS News that have not been previously reported. In those posts, he calls for the American public to muster the same outrage for the COVID-19 death toll that they displayed after 9/11. In one, from April 2020, El-Sayed compared the nearly 3,000 Americans killed on Sept. 11 to the mounting COVID-19 death toll and argued for a response commensurate with the nation's post-9/11 mobilization. In another, El-Sayed wrote that because more Americans had died from COVID than in the Sept. 11 attacks, he hoped "that means we'll spend the next ten years fighting a war for public health & against poverty ... like we launched a global #Waron Terror after 9/11. We could save lives rather than take them."
ProfGadfly@profgadfly.bsky.social · last mo.

We have to stop thinking that we're saving money by buying stuff through these vendors. We're not. We're just letting their owners get rich while we subsidize their greed through our taxes and degraded public services.

Robert Reich@rbreich.bsky.social · last mo.

Target paid its CEO $21.8M last year — 794x the median Target worker's pay of $27,506. Target has also spent $13.9B on stock buybacks since 2019, while remaining among the largest employers of Medicaid and SNAP recipients in America. This is what I mean by a rigged economy.

Mark T. Sneed@marktsneed.bsky.social · last mo.

On this I cannot disagree. Mainstream media and legacy media have been bought and paid for and are willing turning a blind eye to an obvious coverup. No one is willing to go to the hospital and find out the truth? Shameful.

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