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Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 22m

Forget it, Jake, it's Numberwang.

FT Alphaville @alphaville.ft.com · 32m

Possibly the world's most valuable company, if you backdate the market cap and calculate it wrong.

on.ft.com/478TZZA

Mullen’s marvellous maths

[FREE TO READ] How can a struggling EV company have a $1.4 quintillion share-price peak?

on.ft.com

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Hillary Monahan @hillarymonahan.bsky.social · 1h

I'm not trying to be a dick.

But they picked two fat republicans for a bunch of jokes when the young republicans said the worst shit imaginable.

My fat ass is out there fighting for what's right.

Stop equating fat with bad or less. Stop telling ME I'm one annoyance away from being your target.

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 43m

When the student suggested the idea of “selfish freedom” the first person who came to mind was jdv. Proven quite true here bsky.app/profile/radl...

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 2h

Fascinating. Politico notes that when notified of the texts, many state-level Republicans fired or condemned these cretins. Now Vance emerges to excuse the racism, and calls the reaction to it "pearl clutching."

He seems determined to purge the party of its last enclaves of decency.

‘College Group Chat’: JD Vance Dismisses ‘Pearl Clutching’ Over Young Republicans Leak to Attack Jay Jones

Liberals hit back at Vance's blunt dismissal of racist, antisemitic and misogynistic messages leaked from a Young Republicans group chat.

www.mediaite.com

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Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 1d

Discussing Maxine Greene's The Dialectic of Freedom today in class: "...personal freedom refers to self-dependence & self-determination; it has little to do with connectedness or being together in community." Student articulated this as "Selfish Freedom" - which I think perfectly fits this moment...

Text from a book that reads:
Talk of personal freedom refers to self-dependence and self-determination; it has little to do with connectedness or being together in community. Americans assume that they were born free. If they can function with any degree of effectiveness, they feel entitled to do as they please, to pursue their fulfillments on their own. To be autonomous and independent: This seems to many to be the American dream.

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Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 40m

It's not Stalinism, exactly, but 'your job is to break things & hurt people' (to quote Whiskey Pete) does seem to be the ethos they're trying to foster.

Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 2h

Fascinating. Politico notes that when notified of the texts, many state-level Republicans fired or condemned these cretins. Now Vance emerges to excuse the racism, and calls the reaction to it "pearl clutching."

He seems determined to purge the party of its last enclaves of decency.

‘College Group Chat’: JD Vance Dismisses ‘Pearl Clutching’ Over Young Republicans Leak to Attack Jay Jones

Liberals hit back at Vance's blunt dismissal of racist, antisemitic and misogynistic messages leaked from a Young Republicans group chat.

www.mediaite.com

Reposted by Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629

Matt Round @mattround.com · 18h

OpenAI’s strategy is very clear, it’s trying to get people - especially young people - so reliant on its products intellectually & emotionally (& now sexually!) that going without them becomes unthinkable. And they need signs of that strategy working to keep the funding flowing in

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Daniel Bachman @danielbachman.bsky.social · 3h

The mask debate on here is centered around SARS2/COVID (which is still totally not going well) but also misses other parts of what’s going on rn with climate breakdown & a fascist surveillance state. Masking is 100% the future, whether it’s against a novel virus, wildfire smoke, or police cameras.❤️‍🔥😷

Melissa Gira Grant @melissagiragrant.com · 4h

All I can add to the “we reject universal masking” discourse is that it’s not about masks. You aren’t rejecting universal masking, which never happened; you’re rejecting having to think about wearing a mask, and maybe feeling badly about thinking about masks. Can’t help you there.

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Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 48m

Oh he messed me up pretty good. The principle seemed to feel personally insulted that the guy thought he could pull that shit in his school, & didn't fall for it.

Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 55m

Some years back I read an essay talking about the problems with 'intent' as a factor in moral decisions, centered on Orson Scott Card's 'Ender' novels. Card wanted intent to morally absolve Ender's genocide of the alien race. Thinking about that as I read this part of the thread.

ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 1h

Nelson: "Section 2 requires neither a confession, nor an accusation of racism. It looks only at results."

This should be the winning point, but it won't, because Republicans.

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Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

'That case was poorly argued by counsel so in retrospect our ruling was wrong' is a pretty weird argument to make if one wants, generally, to assert moral authority for one's rulings.

ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 2h

Roberts is saying that the court's own precedent from a couple of years ago, where it ruled that Alabama had to draw racial fair maps, doesn't apply to this (identical) case, essentially because the Alabama case was poorly argued.
It's a terrible argument, but the hill Roberts is gonna die on.

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Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

Put another way: BEING racist is 'protected speech', & MITIGATING RACISM is not.
When I think of it that way, it's basically conservatism, distilled: Government is not allowed to actively pursue change. Change must flow from the will of God, which in late capitalism is sigified by Wealth.

ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 1h

The Louisiana argument is essentially that you CAN use race to be racist but you CAN'T use race to ameliorate racism.

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Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

Young people don't know better, in so very many ways that matter for abusive systems.

Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

Opsec is a performance for Trumpists, who don't believe in truth. Private performance, in a deniable context like that, doesn't matter. Publicly performing offense at breach of confidence, though, is seen to have propaganda value.

Jesse Dollemore @dollemore.com · 18h

Currently on a flight to Japan watching a Pentagon Assistant Press Secretary (Riley Podleski) work on a document in the open on her laptop. She spent the last hour copy and pasting headlines from articles critical of the Administration’s hostility toward the 1st amendment.

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Bluesky mods aid genocide by banning Palestinians @pastures.myatproto.social · 1h

Two US B-52s are north of Venezuela with transponders on doing a refueling loop. If it's training, it's a message.

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Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

What I recall from discussions with him over the years is that albopictus is FREAKISHLY adaptable & extremely hard to control.

Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

My brother did his diss research on albopictus, c30 yrs ago - even then it was established in Michigan. So, yeah, there're likely competent vectors in the region.

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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 7h

New York health officials have confirmed the first locally transmitted case of the chikungunya virus which causes high fever, joint pain and fatigue.

It’s usually a tropical virus, but there are now infected mosquitoes spreading in New York. (NYT)

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Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

Also I'm always a little bemused when I see people do the 'reply then block' thing, as seems to have been done here (note the single invisible reply); it's a tell that they [prob*] don't understand how blocking works on bsky. Still Twitter-brained.
_
*maybe took a screenshot 1st but that'd be weird.

Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

There is a difference. If you filter, you end up with a much smaller force than if you convert.
As for "please stop": 'I know the REAL story' is also "CULT 101". So, with kindness: Heal thyself.

Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

He meant to say 'on.' 'We've always stood ON Capitol police.'

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1h

Mike Johnson: "We've always stood with Capitol police and law enforcement. We've shown that in word and deed."

Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

I can buy there was a big higher-level plan. But execution seems totally driven by the manbaby who was wounded by not being seen as a special boy during his time in the service.

Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

Do you mean the come-to-Jesus speed, or this followup, or the whole thing, one-two?
Personally I try to strike a balance between not giving them too much credit & recognizing that yeah they DO make big plans. This one, though - so much of it feels so clearly driven by Pete's ego.

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Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

It's downright weird what'll get you blocked on here. This was a reply in partial agreement with someone who criticzed my post. But there was something about this, or one of my others in this thread (which is now broken because of the block) that set him off.🤷

Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

I mean...no. They will not achieve their desired goals (though I also don't think they honestly know what their own goals are). They MAY end up with a smaller, more ideologically-pure force. Or they may end up with a slightly-smaller force where people keep their mouths shut for now. ...

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Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

My best guess is that he's trying to say 'anthropological' but he doesn't actually think these are people so that's getting jumbled up with 'anthropomorphic' in what pass for his thought processes.

Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

Or just women FTM.

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Feral T. Robot, Oil Swamp Utility Bot #7629 @feralrobots.bsky.social · 1h

... or they may incite a general shift in confidence of the rank & file, leading to passive rebellion. We'll see. Ultimately main thing is yeah, they are incompetent, there's a reason the flag corps didn't & will never respect Whiskey Pete & now that'll be most everyone else, too.