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Dark and Wondrous - it's in the trees! it's coming!

@darkandwondrous.bsky.social

1.6K followers 4.8K following 8K posts

Fight fascism! Writer, science-y person, dad, caregiver, wants to be an artist when he grows up. SFF & moody existential horror. Dada, deco, noir, philosophy. Yunnan tea & long walks on the beach. Monsters, John, monsters from the Id. He/him

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Dark and Wondrous - it's in the trees! it's coming! @darkandwondrous.bsky.social · Jan 31

Hearing AOC in Nemik's voice (complementary)

"Remember this, Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly.

Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear."

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · Jan 30

Yes, this administration is dangerous and cruel, but they are also shockingly dim and incompetent.

Opportunities are everywhere.

Make everything as hard as possible. Resist every demand. Refuse entry without a warrant. Don’t take the buyout. Their problem solving skills are 📉

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BK. Titanji @boghuma.bsky.social · 6h

The thing that is most devastating to me about the ongoing evisceration of the public health infrastructure in the U.S right is how little awareness of what's going on the majority of people in the general public have and the impact this will have on their health and safety.

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Ian Coldwater 👻🌿 @lookitup.baby · 6h

Boss, we’ve got a problem. Users don’t want this stuff! They keep wanting to turn it off, even when we keep turning it back on!

Boss: I have an idea

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 8h

bitch what

Onedrive settings. A toggle for using AI to detect and identify faces is set to on. The caption says, you can only turn off this setting 3 times per year.

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talia jane ❤️‍🔥 @taliajane.bsky.social · 4h

Nobody wants it as a story but I have multiple NYPD sources who voted for Mamdani, are eager for his win in November, and who say their colleagues quietly feel the same.

They like that he wants NYPD to focus on crime, not quality of life enforcement.

Mark Misoshnik 🏴 @misoshnik.bsky.social · 1d

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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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 4h

This piece stays at the right level of zoomed out and has the right take home messages imo! bsky.app/profile/josh...

Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 4h

On the firing and (partial) unfiring of CDC experts by an administration that uses RIFs as political retribution with blatant disregard for agency missions. It is the kind of error that should have political consequences.

Unserious people cause real-world harm:
substack.com/home/post/p-...

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Aubrey Gilleran @aubreygilleran.bsky.social · 8h

There are many other ways in which the kids are not all right. Widespread concerns about reading comprehension are valid and threaten democracy in other ways. But in terms of being broadly accepting of racial and sexual diversity, the game's over, and the libs won. 2/2

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Dark and Wondrous - it's in the trees! it's coming! @darkandwondrous.bsky.social · 17h

A semantic point, I suppose, but the word "homeland" was not part of US govt nomenclature until after 9/11 & should be expunged.

To me it has the whiff of dystopia if not Nazism. Its roots are not deep in the culture.

Those whose jimmies would be rustled by its loss NEED their jimmies rustled imo.

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Dark and Wondrous - it's in the trees! it's coming! @darkandwondrous.bsky.social · 7h

A phone going unanswered in an occupied house was a horror/thriller trope: something is WRONG, and/or someone is UP TO NO GOOD.

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Mike Chen @mikechenwriter.bsky.social · 7h

In (very) small victories, I am happy to inform you that as a 40something homeowner, I've just learned that the toothpick trick for loose screws really works. www.youtube.com/watch?v=GetV...

Fix a Stripped Screw Hole Using Toothpicks, In Under 2 Minutes!

YouTube video by Your Landlord Resource

www.youtube.com

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 7h

I am increasingly concerned we are going to be at that outcome before the midterms provide an opportunity to change the balance of government. I had hoped SCOTUS might slow this process, but they're accelerating it instead, with remarkable foolishness.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 8h

yeah, that is actually my nightmare, especially if the opposition does not win institutional power. it is not hard to imagine a stephen miller deciding that if they can't do things the "soft" way, then it is time to start killing people

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 8h

This seems true, but it has pretty dark implications, because the consistent historical trend is for radicals of this sort, when stymied, to ramp up the violence in an effort to break through.

I think some folks are expecting a 'soft' Hungary-style tyranny and I don't think that's in the cards.

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 8h

a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society

Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 9h

What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.

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Dark and Wondrous - it's in the trees! it's coming! @darkandwondrous.bsky.social · 7h

🧵

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 8h

After the Peloponnesian War - I promise this is relevant - Sparta installed an oligarchic puppet government, the Thirty Tyrants, in Athens.

What rapidly became clear was that Athenian democratic habits were so deeply rooted that tremendous violence would be necessary to remove them.

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the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 9h

In a secret Paris cavern, the real underground cinema

Police in Paris have discovered a fully equipped cinema-cum-restaurant in a large and previously uncharted cavern underneath the capital's chic 16th arrondissement.

www.theguardian.com

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badmarble @failedstates.bsky.social · 8h

In case anyone was wondering, as I was, there does not appear to be a complete list of the films that were found in the initial search; however, there are three standouts mentioned in a later article:

- Ghost in the Shell
- Rumble Fish
- Eraserhead

www.theguardian.com/film/2007/de...

Andrea Hubert on underground cinema

Can underground cinema survive when you can find anything on the web? Andrea Hubert takes a subterranean journey

www.theguardian.com

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the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 9h

In 2004, Parisian police were conducting a training exercise in the french catacombs and found, after moving past a desk and a tape playing audio of snarling dogs, a fully functional movie theater and bar. When they returned 3 days later, the equipment was gone, with a note: “Do not try to find us.”

Members of the force's sports squad, responsible
- among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access.
Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said.
Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs".

There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.
A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said.
"The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there."
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."

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Dark and Wondrous - it's in the trees! it's coming! @darkandwondrous.bsky.social · 7h

! Live from Our Lady of the Fungal something-or-other—these pictures were taken today (probably 😉)!

Thank you, Kev/arglebargle!

Also, don't miss the similarly eroded gravestone pic posted in reply.

KevW @arglebargle1.bsky.social · 8h

Here you go.

Dark and Wondrous - it's in the trees! it's coming! @darkandwondrous.bsky.social · 7h

KevW @arglebargle1.bsky.social · 8h

Here you go.

A weather-worn statue above a church door

A close-up of the head and shoulders of a weather-worn statue.

A close-up of the head of a weather-worn statue.

The frontage of a church showing a weather-worn statue in an alcove above the main door.

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 9h

Vought is not interested in “normal” democratic politics: He seeks to “traumatize” civil servants, use the military to suppress protests, and sees Trump as an agent of God’s will. He is convinced to be fighting a noble war to defend his “real America” of white Christian patriarchal rule.

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 9h

But there is nothing noble or respectable about what Vought is doing, about his vision for the country. He is a fully competent, utterly committed radical ideologue. He lusts for counter-revolution and radical measures. There is no line he doesn’t feel justified to cross.

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 9h

Vought is a key figure in the world of Trumpism, with a rare – and dangerous – combination of ideological zeal and operative competence, a fully committed extremist causing massive harm to millions of people.

But if you only listened to The Daily, you wouldn’t get any of that.

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 10h

About a week ago, the New York Times’ “The Daily” podcast portrayed Russell Vought as a devout Christian, a true “small government” conservative who loves the free market, and a man with a great work ethic. A remarkable combination of credulousness and deliberate whitewashing.

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Thomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 10h

Sunday reading:

I wrote about the aggrieved extremist who is currently firing thousands of federal workers and ravaging state capacity based on conspiratorial nonsense - and about mainstream media’s infuriating tendency to sanitize Russell Vought and the regime he serves.

This week’s piece:

We need to talk about Russell Vought – But Properly

Why certain mainstream outlets insist on sanitizing Vought as a devout “small government” conservative – and what actually animates his war against pluralistic democracy

steady.page

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The Ass is the father of the legs @internethippo.bsky.social · 8h

They finally found a job AI can reliably replace and it's "circa 2010 pickup artist"

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Dark and Wondrous - it's in the trees! it's coming! @darkandwondrous.bsky.social · 8h

These are so cool! Thank you!!

Somebody should do a low budget folk/cosmic/fungal horror movie set in & around that area. Already got a head start on the art direction...

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Larry Glickman @larryglickman.bsky.social · 1d

Careful and powerful analysis by @gregsargent.bsky.social of the New York Times treating Trump's propagandists as "provocateurs" and decision to treat MAGA's ideologically-driven lies as part of a legitimate clash of perspectives in describing Portland.
newrepublic.com/article/2016...

MAGA Implodes over Kristi Noem’s “Stare Down” with Man in Chicken Suit

A good New York Times piece on Portland nevertheless demonstrates how the conventions of objective reporting fail to accurately capture the bad faith driving pro-Trump propaganda.

newrepublic.com

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