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Reposted by Fritz Swanson

Bill Tozier @vaguery.bsky.social · 18h

Uploaded 2 single issues of _The Practical Printer_ from 1901. Font showings in this trade magazine are interesting, because they apparently set all headers and ads in the featured display font each month!

\cc @fritzswanson.bsky.social

#digitization (of the day, -ish)

archive.org/details/@vag...

Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Texts, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

archive.org

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Bonnie Honig @bonniehonig.bsky.social · 21h

Hamas agreed to this same deal by Dec 2024. But “Baskin would soon learn that the Israelis had no intention of striking any agreement before a change of administration in Washington…”
Reminiscent of Reagan/Carter and a different hostage release…

The Times & Sunday Times @thetimes.com · 5d

Gershon Baskin says he got the plan on to the president’s desk but then learnt the Israelis were waiting for a change of administration in Washington

Biden and Netanyahu were offered same deal a year ago, says negotiator

Gershon Baskin says he got the plan on to the president’s desk but then learnt the Israelis were waiting for a change of administration in Washington

www.thetimes.com

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 19h

Wealth inequality is strangling all of us slowly. Think of money as the oxygen that sustains our society. As it all collects in their accounts, we grow dizzy and weak. If we don't take the money back, we will die. Our democracies will collapse. And if they enclose labor, we won't even be peasants.

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 19h

Because they compete with nation states for resources, they are even driving up the "cost" of government. At the scale of billions, money is no longer money. It is pure power. And our society cannot have power concentrated like that and still function. Their strength causes our weakness.

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 19h

But this is just one example of how billionaire investing squeezes the rest of us out. They buy property and housing costs skyrocket globally. They secure college spots for their kids and drive up the price of college for everyone. Every purchase they make distorts the global market for that good.

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 19h

The AI race is a race to build morally neutral slaves. It is a bid to turn capital directly into labor without any people involved. Which decouples billionaires from everyone else. And in the process, it drives massive inflation in the invested assets, in this case electricity which we all use.

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 19h

As wealth is concentrated, it has to be invested. If a billion people had a dollar, they would spend it. When one person has a billion dollars, it has to be invested. If you have $10,000 you invest in a normal company and get a normal rate of return. But a billion can't be invested normally. 🧵

Eric Reinhart @eric-reinhart.com · 1d

This is an alarming compression of the planetary destruction timeline: with the massive growth of the AI bubble, data centers are expected to consume up to 12% of total US electricity by 2028, up from 4.4% in 2023.
www.cnn.com/2025/10/13/t...

Sora 2 and ChatGPT are consuming so much power that OpenAI just did another 10 gigawatt deal | CNN Business

OpenAI is partnering with Broadcom to design and develop 10 gigawatts of custom AI chips and systems, a massive amount of power that will use as much electricity as a large city. The move further high...

www.cnn.com

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 21h

The Federal Department of the Noble Order of the Ku Klux Klan

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 1d

"During the encounter, Greeley said they told her she 'doesn’t look like' a Greeley."

www.yahoo.com/news/article...

Chicago Tribune: Greeley, who was born at Illinois Masonic hospital and is adopted, carries a copy of her passport just in case she runs into federal agents.

“I am Latina and I am a service worker,” Greeley said. “I fit the description of what they’re looking for now.”

During the encounter, Greeley said they told her she “doesn’t look like” a Greeley.

“They said this isn’t real, they kept telling me I’m lying, I’m a liar,” Greeley recalled. “I told them to look in the rest of my wallet, I have my credit cards, my insurance.”

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 1d

It should be illegal.

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 1d

We used to call “media literacy” things like literary analysis or critical analysis, but really it’s “exegesis”. I’m just grumpy that we watered down textual analysis so far across the 20th century that now even our nostalgia for it is broken. Expecting “literacy” is setting the bar too low.

HerRoyalBOO👻bies @ourflagmeansbeth.bsky.social · 2d

I read Peter Thiel’s essay on Alan Moore’s Watchmen and it unquestionably proves that piss poor media literacy is foundational to this recent rise of fascism.

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 2d

The 400 richest Americans are now worth a record $6.6 trillion.

The entire bottom 50% of America is worth just $4.2 trillion.

Read that back.

When 400 people control more wealth than half a country’s population, we have a very serious problem.

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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 2d

The new pope is quoting Hannah Arendt. www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...

Pope Leo calls for news agencies to stand as bulwark against "post-truths," lies and manipulation

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the "ancient art of lying" and manipulation.

www.cbsnews.com

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 2d

50% of US consumer spending originates from the top 10%. As more work is automated or off shored, we’ve now hit a point where the rich don’t need us for anything, even as consumers. If middle class Americans go to war with each other, it’s just going to clear land for the rich to expand into.

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Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · 3d

Chicago priest Fr. Larry Dowling describes procession to ICE facility: “No one had the courage to speak directly to us. No one from Homeland Security could stand in the presence of the Monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament. No wonder. Evil is repelled, recoils in the presence of Christ.”

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 2d

bright blue derms, bubble-packed in a rolled strip

🪡 Ether GhostLace 🪡 (she/her—illiteratis did this) @laceslibgremlin.bsky.social · 2d

Thiel just says things because he’s high on drugs so obscure they don’t have street names

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Melissa Nadia Viviana @resistrebelrevolt.net · 2d

As we get more reports of ICE thugs detaining Americans, it should be noted that Timothy Snyder made it crystal clear from the onset of ICE raids that NO ONE would be safe.

People tell ICE: "I'm an American." They illegally detain us anyway.

Bc WE already let them erode due process for immigrants.

If you accept that non-citizens have no right to due process, you are accepting that citizens have no right to due process. All the government has to do is claim that you are not a citizen; without due process you have no chance to prove the contrary.

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 2d

Game respects game.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 2d

FOX: Do you think President Trump should be nominated for the Nobel Prize next year?

ZELENSKYY: We will be very happy to nominate President Trump next year if he will pressure and stop Putin

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 2d

The CDC needs to study the mental health implications of extreme wealth. We should legit make the case that people need to be PROTECTED from becoming billionaires.

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Sara Nović @novicsara.bsky.social · 3d

I think the most frustrating thing about all of this is that they said they were going to do it before they did it and that didn't matter at all.

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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 4d

Also, a total lie that American students have been crowded out by international students. International students effectively subsidize the tuition of American students!

Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 4d

Quite a feat to go from this to "and therefore universities must ban faculty and students from belittling conservative ideas"

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 4d

This is why we overthrew our king. Billionaires are privatized kings, all the worse because they wield the power without any sense of obligation. At least kings had some sense of duty to their people. Which is not a defense of kings. But only to say that billionaires are far worse than kings.

Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 4d

“The problem with billionaires isn’t that they’re hoarding money that would otherwise pay for a Scandinavian social utopia. It’s that their money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.”

Billionaires Are Hoarding Power, Not Money

Billionaire money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.

www.liberalcurrents.com

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Stephen Nuñez @socio-steve.bsky.social · 4d

THANK YOU. THIS IS WHAT WE MEAN WHEN WE SAY EVERY BILLIONAIRE IS A POLICY FAILURE. IT'S THE INSTABILITY LARGE CONCENTRATIONS OF POWER CREATE. NOT THE LOST REVENUE.

Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 4d

“The problem with billionaires isn’t that they’re hoarding money that would otherwise pay for a Scandinavian social utopia. It’s that their money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.”

Billionaires Are Hoarding Power, Not Money

Billionaire money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.

www.liberalcurrents.com

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Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 4d

Courage is confidence within vulnerability. It means to act rightly even if you don't know the outcome. The brittle authoritarianism of MAGA is cowardly because they lack confidence. They seek to eliminate their vulnerability. They rig the game, they bully the weak, they lock down dissent.

Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 4d

I’d omit “do traditionally” as redundant after the phrase “by definition”.

Fritz Swanson @fritzswanson.bsky.social · 4d

Thanks, Commuting Dog.

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