* There Are Bot
diogeneslamp.bsky.social
* There Are Bot
@diogeneslamp.bsky.social
Wit & one liners about science, pseudoscience & anti-science.
Pinned
Here is my big list of Dad jokes.

#1. What did the pirate say on his 80th birthday?
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17 Dec 2025 @rikiwilchins.bsky.social -- Pretty insane new memo from AG Bondi instructs DOJ to create cash bounty system for information on domestic terrorists--which are overwhelmingly right-wing-- like "Antifa-aligned extremists” promoters of “radical gender ideology.”
Pam Bondi wants the government to create cash bounties for turning in trans equality activists - LGBTQ Nation
Bondi wants the FBI to ignore right-wing terror attacks and target anti-fascists and trans people instead.
www.lgbtqnation.com
December 17, 2025 at 11:03 AM
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Remember back in the day when the FBI used to identify, catch and arrest mass shooters?
December 17, 2025 at 1:24 AM
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RIP "American wars are not about oil" 1990-2025
December 17, 2025 at 6:46 AM
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This is wild!

You know the Vanity Fair article with Susie Wiles that everyone’s talking about?

Yeah. This is basically the audio version Narrated by Nicolle Wallace, and it’s not “taken out of context”. ☠️😭
December 17, 2025 at 3:07 AM
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This gave me an idea. If LLM can truly reason, someone should be able to train one on only texts preceding a major scientific discovery, then have the LLM reason the rest. No need to speculate on if LLMs are capable of novel discoveries. Test them on existing ones.

www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA...
From the LocalLLaMA community on Reddit: Training an LLM only on 1800s London texts - 90GB dataset
Explore this post and more from the LocalLLaMA community
www.reddit.com
December 17, 2025 at 10:47 AM
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Sometimes you wonder how a teeny country which is literally never in the news like Dominica (population ~72,000) makes it on a list like this... and then you see that it's 75% Black.
NEW: President Trump is expanding the previous 19-country travel ban to a whopping 39 countries (plus the Palestinian Authority), and appears to expand a block on legal immigration to now include spouses, children, and parents of U.S. citizens, who were previously exempted.
December 16, 2025 at 8:57 PM
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The US Administration has banned Americans from *adopting babies* from much of the African continent.

Adopting.

Babies.

What trait do those babies have that, when they grow up as fully American adults, would make them a threat to our country in any form?
On that last post: I genuinely cannot think of any good-faith reason to bar international adoptions from those 39 countries. Under this new ban, consulates will refuse adoption visas for any baby from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Nigeria, or any of the 39 other countries.
December 17, 2025 at 3:04 AM
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i got booted from bluesky and finally got to log back in 😅

sitka’s been getting dumped on (snow/hail) lately and in between snow showers today we got thunder and lightning! very unusual
December 16, 2025 at 12:02 AM
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December 17, 2025 at 2:33 AM
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A reminder tonight that Venezuela has nothing to do with fentanyl. The vast majority of the fentanyl supply begins as precursor chemicals in China, is manufactured in Mexico, and makes it to the U.S. by land, mostly smuggled by U.S. citizens hiding it within lawful trade and traffic at entry points.
Fentanyl smuggling: Most seizures occur at ports of entry where U.S. citizens are the primary smugglers - American Immigration Council
Most fentanyl enters the U.S. through ports of entry, not via migrants. U.S. citizens are the primary smugglers, often recruited by criminal networks. Effective solutions focus on better screening at ...
www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org
December 17, 2025 at 2:00 AM
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Yes. As with the first travel ban, this one also appears to exempt any athletes, coaches, and their families traveling for the World Cup.

However, fans are not exempted, so if they don't have tourist visas already (current visa-holders may still enter on a valid visa) they are just out of luck.
Aren't like 5 of these countries in the World Cup?
December 16, 2025 at 9:05 PM
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Here is a map of the affected countries (excluding Tonga), to give you a sense of how much this new ban restricts immigration from Africa in particular.

Of the newly-added country, Nigeria faces the largest impact, with tens of thousands of visas issued every year to Nigerians.
December 16, 2025 at 8:58 PM
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Under the expanded ban:

- 19 countries are subject to near-total bars on immigrant or non-immigrant visas.
- 19 countries are subject to near-total bars on immigrant visas and a bar on tourist, student, and exchange visitor visas.
- Turkmenistan is subject to a near-total bar on immigrant visas.
December 16, 2025 at 8:44 PM
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NEW: President Trump is expanding the previous 19-country travel ban to a whopping 39 countries (plus the Palestinian Authority), and appears to expand a block on legal immigration to now include spouses, children, and parents of U.S. citizens, who were previously exempted.
December 16, 2025 at 8:32 PM
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they keep emphasizing that these are on "known narcotrafficking routes" and like, those are just route-routes. there are not special ocean highways for drugs.
I'm not sure if people realize the murder strikes are taking place across a large region. It's quite staggering.
www.newsweek.com/map-us-strik...
December 16, 2025 at 8:31 PM
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Another insane move from the Trump regime.

One of NCAR's contributions to climate science is the development of the Community Earth System Model (CESM), which is used by researchers worldwide. Here's a simulation of air-sea CO₂ fluxes from CESM.
December 17, 2025 at 3:53 AM
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People still believe this nonsense. Shame.
December 16, 2025 at 7:00 PM
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Israel has blocked humanitarian aid shipments of tents bound for Gaza, claiming the aluminum poles used to erect them are a “dual use” item that could be repurposed for military activities.
December 16, 2025 at 7:18 PM
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An absolute bedrock institution for understanding how the planet works, just civilization-scaled vandalism by the most incurious morons on Earth
December 17, 2025 at 2:52 AM
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It is kind of funny to say that AIPAC does not support your campaign while AIPAC's president hosts a fundraiser at his house
AIPAC Head Hosts Fundraiser for House Candidate Who Swears AIPAC Isn’t Backing Her
Laura Fine has distanced herself from the Israel lobby, but AIPAC donors are pouring funding into her Illinois congressional campaign.
theintercept.com
December 16, 2025 at 11:10 PM
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there is really no difference between the current administration and having the country run by david duke
On that last post: I genuinely cannot think of any good-faith reason to bar international adoptions from those 39 countries. Under this new ban, consulates will refuse adoption visas for any baby from Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Nigeria, or any of the 39 other countries.
December 17, 2025 at 3:17 AM
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Just a few years ago this depraved post, based on a fake Rob Reiner tweet, would have rightfully got Loomer cancelled as a legitimate public voice.

Thanks to Trump plunging American discourse into the sewer, it's now rewarded with high engagement.

The MAGA movement is an assault on human decency.
December 16, 2025 at 1:27 PM
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Trump just announced he will address the nation tomorrow night from the White House. Probably to declare war on Venezuela. We all knew he was going to pull some last-second shit to distract from the Epstein files.
December 17, 2025 at 2:13 AM
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Nearly a year into Trump's 2nd term, the only rational conclusion that can be drawn from his shit show is that Vladimir Putin is now the Commander In Chief of the US military.
Look for Trump to send US soldiers to Ukraine to fight alongside Russia when Putin runs out of his own soldiers to kill...
December 16, 2025 at 4:28 PM
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Read this. Then read it again.
December 17, 2025 at 12:51 AM