Andrew Parker
@andrewparker.bsky.social
4.3K followers 150 following 11K posts
Formerly of the birdsite as Apark2453, but staking my claim to the full name! Lawyer, overanalyzer of godawful subcultures, always up to dunk on some chuds. If you’re into all of that too… I’m sorry, but welcome friend!
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andrewparker.bsky.social
She never says that providing a fake alibi “seems like the most innocuous crime”?

Depressing to realize some ppl (or gremlins!) won’t read the screenshot.
andrewparker.bsky.social
Creating a fake alibi for the kind of crime you need an alibi for is never going to “seem innocuous” much less “the most innocuous crime”.

The fact that she apparently thinks it would seem innocuous until you find out the exact crime is the lack of awareness and judgment.
andrewparker.bsky.social
The revolution must arrive fully-formed and consist entirely of those joyless, grimly determined, true believers.

Enthusiasm? Perish the thought.

A springing forth of life in opposition to oppression? Preposterous.

Fun of any kind? Counter-revolutionary.
andrewparker.bsky.social
It baffles me that there are people for whom the straw that broke the camel’s back was this many straws more than mine, but I’ll absolutely celebrate that the camel finally broke.
faineg.bsky.social
On the record, I think sneering at these people that they’re somehow *bad* because they stayed on Twitter for this long is incredibly counterproductive

it’s great that more people have escaped the Mussolini Piss Hole and come to Bluesky actually, their numbers shall strengthen us
faineg.bsky.social
judging from what I’m seeing right now, a large-scale Twitter Exodus Event is 100% what’s happening

good!
andrewparker.bsky.social
How anyone can look at the success the alt-right has had with internet meme humor utterly inscrutable to normies and say “well ackshually if you’re doing anything amusing you’re not protesting” is buckwild.
sharonk.bsky.social
telling anti-Yoon activists they aren't real protestors

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
andrewparker.bsky.social
I was on the second page of a Google search thinking “why is this respectable journalist who reported on the alt-right extensively shit talking protests” before I realized I googled the wrong Talia.
andrewparker.bsky.social
It takes a profound lack of awareness or judgment to (as an adult) describe premeditatedly making a false alibi for people who are going to commit a serious crime as even *seeming* innocuous

The “how dare you bring up that tragedy and trauma” is undercut by the “she wrote about it for Cracked” part
andrewparker.bsky.social
“Accessory to at minimum kidnapping and extortion” does not, in fact, sound like the most innocuous crime ever committed.
sky.skymarchini.net
she was just desperate for a friend, who among us wouldn't help their friends cover up murdering two elderly people in an extortion-gone-wrong (that she willingly participated in providing an alibi for)

it's "the most innocuous crime ever committed", alibing people stealing $100k from elderly folks
July 30, 2000: Glenn, Justin, and Dawn abduct elderly Annette and Ivan Stineman and bring them back to the Helzer house. The Stinemans are then drugged and forced to write out checks to Bishop totaling $100,000. My mother's role in all this? She was responsible for the trio's alibi: receipts for us all for dinner and a movie. At first blush, that seems like the most innocuous crime ever committed, but it gets bad in a hurry.

My mother took me out that night and bought three extra adult tickets for a showing of X-Men and three extra adult meals at Denny's -- so far, the only crimes being committed are against good taste. But as my mother and I watched Professor Xavier battle his longtime frenemy, Magneto, Glenn and Justin dragged the elderly couple into the Helzer bathroom. Justin bashed Ivan's head against the tile, and Glenn slit Annette's throat with a hunting knife. While I stuffed my face with meatloaf and mashed potatoes, Glenn, Justin, and Dawn dismembered the elderly couple's bodies and tried feeding them to a pair of dogs Glenn had recently adopted. The animals refused the meal.
andrewparker.bsky.social
It’s incredibly easy to look at an action and say “this is ineffective, you should do some more useful thing”

But if you can’t affirmatively identify what specific more useful thing you’d like them to be doing, it’s little more than prosodic masturbation.
andrewparker.bsky.social
Remember when democrats freaked the fuck out at the mere accusation that the IRS was scrutinizing right-wing nonprofits more?

Not rejecting them, not prosecuting anyone, just raising more questions?
justinhendrix.bsky.social
"The Trump administration is preparing sweeping changes at the Internal Revenue Service that would allow the agency to pursue criminal inquiries of left-leaning groups more easily, according to people familiar with the matter."
Exclusive | Trump Team Plans IRS Overhaul to Enable Pursuit of Left-Leaning Groups
The effort would install a Trump ally at the IRS’s criminal unit who has drawn up a list of investigative targets.
www.wsj.com
andrewparker.bsky.social
If you aren’t seeing criticism of RFK in your feed, get a better feed.

I assure you people are capable of both shaming a journalist for the lack of ethics in posting positive stories of the reporter’s secret phone sex partner *and* criticizing the partner themselves.
bradmossesq.bsky.social
Everyone in my feed is shitting on Nuzzi. Meanwhile, the other person in the saga is now destroying the medical community and endangering public health.

But let’s slut shame Nuzzi.
oliverdarcy.bsky.social
Scoop: Olivia Nuzzi has written a book during her year in exile, in which she is set to in part address her relationship with RFK Jr. Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/olivia-nuz...
andrewparker.bsky.social
I desperately want to know what “agreement filed by the town” would somehow dissolve an easement between two private parties.
andrewparker.bsky.social
“Written erotica centered on narrative? My god, that’s unheard of, categorically new!”

- the most painfully straight man to ever live
buildbackwetter.bsky.social
A categorically new version of pornography centered on narrative while avoiding exploitation of sex workers and millions of liberal millennials inexplicably pretending like they're not going to use it
andrewparker.bsky.social
This is, obviously, not the most important part of the article. But good god is this a weird way to describe the lyrics to the Ghostbuster’s theme.
andrewparker.bsky.social
There’s a malevolent elegance to an analysis that amounts to “Republicans being hostile to black voters leading to black voters overwhelmingly supporting Democrats makes it fine for Republicans to discriminate against black voters because it helps them politically”
elienyc.bsky.social
Remember, according to the Republican Justices, it's okay to gerrymander for party advantage, not racial advantage. It's an unknowable distinction, but one that allows the Republicans to okay racist gerrymandering under the guise of political gerrymandering.
andrewparker.bsky.social
The fascinating thing is how engrained the idea that white cishet male is the default character is in dudes like this

The obvious inconsistency (since most FPS games have “forced” you to play a white dude) doesn’t register to them because they don’t view that as a deliberate choice just a baseline
cerberusxt.bsky.social
Imagine living your life in constant fear of anything not being white men. Sounds exhausting and pathetic.
andrewparker.bsky.social
Turns out that saying things like “chatbots don’t feel or suffer” is like saying a puppy is incapable of feeling or suffering.

And saying AI-generated “art” isn’t art is fascist.
andrewparker.bsky.social
I have now been thoroughly exposed to the “being anti-AI is transphobic/fascist/bigoted” side of bluesky and I’d desperately love to be returned to the blissful ignorance of the before times.
andrewparker.bsky.social
“100 genes that do a bunch of things also have an impact on cannabis use” would be a more honest lede, so it’s obvious why that’s not what you’re reporting
andrewparker.bsky.social
That famous early-modern hero… the antichrist.
sharonk.bsky.social
thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.
andrewparker.bsky.social
“I’m amazed people are focusing on her abhorrently bigoted reporting and not how shes such a girlboss.”
sallyjenx.bsky.social
This is really smart. Amazed at the hysteria over the ascendance of a woman entrepreneur who clearly knows how to cover and sell news and who's not afraid to take on a mob. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...
Don’t Bet Against Bari Weiss
The new editor in chief of CBS News triumphs over her critics.
www.theatlantic.com
andrewparker.bsky.social
“I never thought Johnny Cash was cool, so I assume no one else did”
andrewparker.bsky.social
My thing is, follow who you want but especially if you’re a prominent account be prepared to take the criticism for it.
andrewparker.bsky.social
Five years later, she’s still cancer-free (and about to go off of the long-term unpleasant treatment), went back and got her degree in special needs education and now teaches at the same school my wife does.

I honestly can’t think about it without getting a little choked up.

2/
andrewparker.bsky.social
In 2020 my mother-in-law was diagnosed with breast cancer, and my wife suggested we make a gofundme to help cover costs for treatment and being out of work. I posted about it and the people I’d met on Twitter blew us away with their willingness to during a pretty bad time for everyone.

1/
conradhackett.bsky.social
Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?