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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 19h

The biggest personal problem I have with the government shutdown is again discovering how much money I pay to not be able to cook lunch.

I think I can squeeze another week of living expenses out of the fact that I have a stove and oven available.

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Reposted by Ben Steele

Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 2d

the actual story here, which the media never talks about, is that police in this country have become a discrete right-wing political operation. the story isn't about cops leaving (they're lying about that), it's about the police trying to exert influence over elections.

Mark Misoshnik 🏴 @misoshnik.bsky.social · 3d

Lmao is this supposed to be a bad thing?

A tweet from Bari Weiss that says “"It's shaken me to my core," a lieutenant said of Mamdani's unexpected victory in June. "The absolute dread I feel is palpable.
"
Today in @TheFP our @Olivia_Reingold talks to the cops who say they will walk if Zohran Mamdani is elected in November:”

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 1d

Personal update: I just learned to change a headlight on the car I learned to drive in 15 years ago.

Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 1d

This is my personal geology lecture Chekhov's gun.

Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 1d

Can't film a geology video without a green M&M anymore, cuz woke

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 2d

Read a book about monopoly, but there are insufficient copies to share out

Matt Veverka @mattveverka.bsky.social · 2d

Read a book about UBI, everyone should get it!

Ryan @anyfreshfry.bsky.social · 2d

I started reading a book about encryption, but it was really hard to get into.

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 2d

A pesto-centered restaurant: The Basilica

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 2d

Everyone I love in Portland also needs placed into conservatorship to stop them from moving in with their exes and such. There's no violence here, just *terrible~ conceptions of how to date and cohabitate.

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 2d

I love sitting with the people in my life as they go "I should move back in with my ex-roommate" as I just think about how the entirety of the drive from Indiana to Oregon I was getting a play by play of why they needed to stop living together and how separate sides of the country were needed.

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 3d

My most violent trait is making sure everyone in my life has seen this film.

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 3d

Halle Berry saying "I work for the American people, and you're keeping them in the dark" in Moonfall (2021) is one of the funniest things I've heard during the government shutdown.

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 3d

The CC (Cascades Carriage).

Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 3d

Amtrak Cascades party carriage when?

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 3d

I have the best animal neighbors.

Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 3d

You ever remember King Street Station has Dough Zone two blocks away and you don't have to dine on microwave mac and cheese on your way to Portland?

Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 3d

There have been so many sales tax increases under Mayor Tax-the-Poor.

Erica C. Barnett @ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 3d

Harrell says he won't be a mayor "who's just going to tax you to death."

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Reposted by Ben Steele

Erica C. Barnett @ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 3d

Like every mayor before him, Harrell wants arts and culture events downtown. The difference is that "you're going to see a lot of AI in it."

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 3d

The mayor who let minimum 12 full time salaries go to keeping a hotel—contracted to put unhoused people under a roof—empty:

Erica C. Barnett @ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 3d

"So I'm on top of the issues. We're working on it now. And I will guarantee you that we're making changes to our relationship with the county, because I'm paying into a system [that] I think it's failing all of us."

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Reposted by Ben Steele

Erica C. Barnett @ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 3d

Every line is an applause line with this crowd. It's so interesting to see Harrell deal with a friendly audience in a familiar setting (the WAC) without anyone challenging him in any way. Mayor Friendly emerges, a huge contrast from the contempt and rudeness he shows when his opponent is present.

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 5d

I described a friend as moving past the end of the world to my brother, who lives in the bad Vancouver.
"What, do they live in Renton now?"
"Beacon Hill."

Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 5d

*screaming~ Mayor Harrell wants us to believe being an executive director of a major philanthropy org is the same as doing direct client-facing work. Having gone to school kind of for the former (big part of MPA cohorts do that) and been the latter, this man lives in irreality.

Erica C. Barnett @ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 5d

"My wife worked in this field as well," Harrell continues. His wife was the CEO of the United Way, for context.

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Reposted by Ben Steele

Asha Rangappa @asharangappa.bsky.social · 6d

As I observed in my Substack Round Up this past week, the endgame of the military strikes against drug cartels in international waters is to lay the groundwork to use lethal military force against Americans at home. Pay attention open.substack.com/pub/asharang...

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 6d

(Honestly shout-out to my parents for surviving the summer where all my comms were Google Translated for them and vice versa. An incredible feat that nothing went wrong up until a death in the family broke the Spanish-only requirement.)

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 6d

I did try a page in 2012 Google Translate, for the record, since I was a unique and special snowflake that year having to make a second edition of my paper for her.

It was bad. Like, afterwards telling your Dad you can't believe you managed to conduct financial transactions via GT that summer bad.

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Ben Steele @bensteele.bsky.social · 6d

(These and other classical IB problems where your senior English teacher has to grade them all but they are all specialized [and actually graded] in other sections of the curriculum from Spanish to political theory to environmental science.)

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