(VFP) Strategic Gravitas Reserve
@braak.bsky.social
2.1K followers 730 following 37K posts
It's me, braak, returned at long last from my social media exile. I encourage you to purchase my book, RADHIKA RAAD AND THE TOWER INGENIUS, which is now available (for purchase). https://a.co/d/1nix74W
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inquirer.com
Every day at noon, no matter how busy, Johny Merida Aguilar left his construction job and hurried to his 5-year-old son's school to feed him. His son has brain cancer and generally only accepts food from his father.

Merida Aguilar was arrested by ICE in September and faces deportation to Bolivia.
He was caring for his 5-year-old son with brain cancer. Then he was detained by ICE.
A court has temporarily blocked Johny Merida Aguilar's deportation to Bolivia.
www.inquirer.com
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braak.bsky.social
Gonna do a McSweeneys submission that's like, "Great Works of Literature and the Lessons Peter Thiel has Learned from Them"
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maxkennerly.bsky.social
In a huge coincidence, a Bitcoin billionaire just-so-happened to put up massive leveraged bets against Bitcoin and Ethereum right before Trump posted about new tariffs on China, prompting a market crash.

$200m in profits instantly. $200m we know about, because they likely used many accounts.
Early Bitcoin Whale Shorted $1.1B Right Before Tariffs, Now Up $27M - How Did He Know?
Satoshi-era whale shorted $1.1B in BTC and ETH 30 minutes before Trump tariffs, banking $190M-$200M as liquidations hit $19.33B.
cryptonews.com
braak.bsky.social
There's a good story about how I think Joe Mangianello read The Fountainhead while he was working as a trucker and the message he took from it was "you've got to be yourself and chase your dreams" and it inspired him to become an actor.
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grahamformaine.bsky.social
We have armed secret police kidnapping people off the street based on the color of their skin.

When we win: we will haul them before a Senate committee. The masks will come off. There will be consequences.
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espiers.bsky.social
I was trying to put my finger on what bothered me about this portrayal and I think it’s that it just takes the guy’s words at face value, like he was a nice guy and reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death just pushed him over the edge www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/u...
She Despised Charlie Kirk. He Resolved to Make People Like Her Pay.
www.nytimes.com
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melissagiragrant.com
the only pair of white tube socks I own were a gift, passed out to a bunch of us staying overnight at Zuccotti Park, unprepared in a downpour, ahead of a promised raid
thrasherxy.bsky.social
Some of the hate directed at light hearted protest is confusion. The US mind doesn’t know what to do w activity which isn’t for profit-commerce. Can’t compute how someone’s radical act of care in the face evil may be sharing coffee w others fighting the good fight (like church or AA coffee hr)
mkaiasand.bsky.social
Really sweet resistance scene outside ICE in Portland of coffee, donuts and morning.
braak.bsky.social
Just like an inherently warped morality, where bad is good and good as bad. Fascinating to see this.
braak.bsky.social
It's just weird because usually people have asshole beliefs from reading asshole writings correctly, it's so wild to see a guy who's evil because he consistently reads normal good books completely backwards.
braak.bsky.social
Thiel also famously read Lord of the Rings' elegiac attitude towards the elves' return to the West and the world being inherited by mortal men and thought, "Yeah, WE should try to become elves."
zachrabiroff.com
I finally read that Peter Thiel essay about Alan Moore's WATCHMEN, and it's incredible that his actual argument is: "Moore argues that Ozymandias will fail because history defeats all world conquerers, and no victory is permanent. But maybe I, Peter Thiel, am built different?"
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adamserwer.bsky.social
At first i thought the majority on the court was just a bunch of hardcore gop partisans with brains pickled in right wing propaganda but after seeing them do these softball book tour interviews with right wing outlets I'm convinced they're just neutral arbiters doing their best.
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hellabarnes.bsky.social
I demand someone make a show about these plant cops
photo of text:

Nick's next call was to Kew's own police force. (Yes, Kew has a specialist force responsible for on-site security. Established in 1845, the Kew Gardens Constabulary was originally staffed by part-time gardeners and veterans of the Crimean War.)
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caroljeanine.bsky.social
💜💜💜💯💯💯🎉🎉🎉🎉
adapalmer.bsky.social
The WHO has verified the elimination of both measles & rubella in all Pacific Island countries, alongside rubella elimination in Japan. The achievement follows 2 decades of coordinated immunisation campaigns, regional surveillance, and high routine vaccine coverage. buff.ly/EpFb7HK
#ShareGoodNewsToo
Rubella elimination verified in Japan, and measles and rubella elimination verified in Pacific island countries and areas
The World Health Organization (WHO) today announced that the 21 Pacific island countries and areas that are part of the WHO Western Pacific Region have collectively been verified as having eliminated…
buff.ly
braak.bsky.social
I mean I would suggest that this is a very uncreative reading (good guy = Jesus? What is this, freshman year?) the real creative reading is "Monkey D. Luffy is actually the antichrist and One Piece is propaganda from his perspective trying to slander the Church"
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braak.bsky.social
"Monkey D. Luffy is a Christ Like figure" my dude WHAT
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nyxthebat.vtubers.social
"kill them with kindness" wrong. bat attack
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braak.bsky.social
I think the imagine they'll be doing a lot of "I put our argument into ChatGPT and it says that I'm correct and you're being 20% more emotional about this than I am," and also that this will somehow work.
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hels.bsky.social
Obsessed with photographer Thea Traff’s stark, color-blocky images that run alongside my restaurant review this week. Also, tbh, very pleased by my opening graf www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
THE FOOD SCENE
HOW FRENCH SHOULD A
RESTAURANT BE?
Chateau Royale, from the team behind Libertine, pulls out all of the Gallic stops without, for the most part, feeling ostentatious or conceited.
By Helen Rosner
October 12, 2025
Chateau Royale both plays its Frenchness straight and wears it lightly.
Photographs by Thea Traff for The New Yorker These days, it seems like you can't flick a cigarette in this town without it smacking into a brand-new French restaurant with an old-fashioned point of view. An ocean of Le and La and L', Chez Whoever and Maison So-and-So, This or That d'Or. If, in a haze of butter and white Burgundy, you sat down to write a parody of the ur-resto for our current culinary Franco-cacophony, you could do worse than to title it "Chateau Royale," a phrase both spectacularly generic and hilariously evocative. It is also the name of a place that opened this summer, in a century-old carriage house just south of Washington Square Park, the latest spot from the restaurateur Cody Pruitt, of Libertine, and his business partner, Jacob Cohen. The semi-absurdity of the thing is on unabashed display: white-jacketed waiters? Foie gras? Escargot? Oui, oui, et oui.
braak.bsky.social
"what if Scott Glenn was so rad he could kill Satan"
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lordbusinessman.bsky.social
The conservative 'legal' project, to the extent that it is an anti-liberal project, necessarily must be to enshrine arbitrary rule, as the rule of law as we know it is a liberal project.
matthewstiegler.bsky.social
Roberts is presiding over, and driving, a stunning collapse in faith in the U.S. Supreme Court, not just among the public, but among federal judges.

What a failure. The Titanic captain of chief justices.
murshedz.bsky.social
“More than three dozen federal judges have told The New York Times that the Supreme Court’s flurry of brief, opaque emergency orders in cases related to the Trump administration have left them confused about how to proceed in those matters and are hurting the judiciary’s image with the public.”
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emilydwarfield.bsky.social
The only reason this isn’t considered trafficking via fraud is because crime is something poor people do
fascistdemtracker.bsky.social
Fun fact about the Salvation Army: they use a form of substance use treatment called work therapy. Oh, and by treatment, I mean they have people who have been convicted of drug charges work for their stores & warehouses in exchange for room, board, around a $1 a week, and minimal actual therapy.
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dieworkwear.bsky.social
About a month ago, the Trump administration got rid of the de minimis exemption, whereby packages valued under $800 could slide in without import duties. Now there's a backlog as the government can't process all of this paperwork, leading to UPS just destroying packages
Business Insider headline reads: UPS is telling customers that their packages coming to the US are marked for destruction.