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Matthew Downhour

@matthewdownhour.bsky.social

15K followers 7.9K following 38K posts

Liberal, Montanan. Subscribe to Paine-Wollstonecraft-Douglass-George thought, Bolivar-Juarez-Nkomo-Zelenskyy praxis

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 15d

Tariffs are buoyed mostly by a couple myths - I try to take on a couple here

Tariffs are neither fair nor simple

Tariffs appear simple because they are baked into prices, but behind the scenes is a complicated, regressive system ripe for corruption

apply-liberally.ghost.io

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 20h

Anyone with any familiarity with the history of Jewish people in Europe should be aware that Euros didn’t need to learn about segregation from us (if anything we, perhaps unconsciously, picked it up from them)

chbarts @chbarts.bsky.social · 1d

Post like this and I unfollow and mute. This is erasing centuries of European pogroms and other violence prior to WWII by making America the sin-eater for the entire Western world. I won't have it and I won't let it slide:

Cærsten (@cara.city) posted:

"we didn't cause Nazism" dude Hitler based the Nuremberg Laws on the Jim Crow south and Lebensraum was partially inspired by the native genocide of the 19th century idk what to tell you
‪
By quote-posting:
Will Stancil‬ (@whstancil.bsky.social‬):

we didn’t cause Nazism. whatever caused incumbents to tank in 2024, it wasn’t unique to us. we aren’t uniquely corrupt, or violent, or authoritarian. there are good things and bad things about our country like any other, and Americans work a lot like people anywhere

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 20h

We’ve gotta start flying them in from Ethiopia I’ve been saying this for years

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 22h

Last call for mainline Protestants to reclaim some relevance in the U.S.

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 2d

it'd be funny if Trump II gave us the rebirth of the social gospel and a woke Great Awakening

☀️ Starshine @starshine.bsky.social · 2d

I have friends (of christ) everywhere

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 22h

The two genders

CTV News Ottawa @ctvnewsottawa.bsky.social · 22h

Kingston, Ont. names cardinal, crow as official city birds following vote

The cardinal and the crow received the most votes in the City of Kingston's poll to choose the official City Bird, so both will share the designation.

bit.ly

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 23h

Are there plants that just love poorly drained soil? Every plant description I’ve seen mentions ‘well drained soil’ which seems at this point so ubiquitous as to be unnecessary to even say

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 23h

New electoral college just dropped - do we win this one?

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Reposted by Matthew Downhour

Stephen Hampshire @shampshire.bsky.social · 1d

Someone who thinks “building various kind of statistical forecasting models” is an edge case for AI.

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Ed Zitron @edzitron.com · 1d

AI has lost the dunce vote. It’s over

Nate Silver
@NateSilver538 • 5h
•.°
I'm just one person, and my programming needs are somewhat unusual (building various kinds of statistical forecasting models). But I'm just not seeing the consistent productivity gains from LLMs that I would have expected if you'd asked me 6 months ago.

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 23h

One of many bowls - picked at least 15 pounds of grapes today. Incredible year for them!

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 23h

Oh no

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 23h

Similar to the shooting in Anaconda. I do wonder what the social impacts of a crime like this are for these towns, years down the line

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 23h

Population: roughly 4,500. So nearly 1/1000 of the town was killed in single incident

Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 1d

Four dead, 12 injured after a mass shooting in Leland, Mississippi, following a homecoming football game. (NYP)

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Reposted by Matthew Downhour

chbarts @chbarts.bsky.social · 1d

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 23h

The fact that instead hundreds of thousands were killed by Germans even while Germany occupied France is a pretty good indication that even that occupation - which was much more organized and less violent than in the East - was quite brutal

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 23h

It also just doesn’t make sense. Most of the civilians killed by both sides were in bombardments. Given that Germans controlled France for much more of the war than the Allies did, one would normally expect way more French deaths in allied bombings than vice versa

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Reposted by Matthew Downhour

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 1d

Live your life in such a way that if someone suggests you and Donald Trump oversee a small country, you’re not the one people object most to

Hamas says Tony Blair not welcome in Gaza following ceasefire

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 1d

Also why most religious that last have some apparently arbitrary prohibitions - ‘we are the people who gave up X’ is a powerful way to build community

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 1d

There is no alternative because part of why people feel loyal to communities is because they have sacrificed something to join them

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 1d

Inconvenience is the price we pay for community and a major reason there are so few secular alternatives to religious communities is it’s hard to justify that price in secular terms

The Fig Economy @figgityfigs.bsky.social · 1d

I feel lots of things that felt like, were billed as, self-actualization read in retrospect as canaries in the coal mine for the fraying commitments we owe to each other as members of a society.

Aubrey Gilleran @aubreygilleran.bsky.social · 1d

Relatedly, I recall a lot of "the joy of canceling plans" jokes and memes from the 2010s and now folks are talking about a loneliness epidemic, and, well...

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Reposted by Matthew Downhour

JB stan account @johnbrownstan.bsky.social · 1d

One thing I've noticed is that even well-educated people underestimate how much control over the structure of the courts congress has. Almost nothing about the courts requires a constitutional amendment to change

Oops! Unable to resolve handle @curiousaboutupdog.bsky.social · 9d

This would take a constitutional amendment to change, right?

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 1d

The only barrier there would be Trump telling Israel not to

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 1d

I did not!

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 1d

That is my favorite part!

Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 1d

Live your life in such a way that if someone suggests you and Donald Trump oversee a small country, you’re not the one people object most to

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Matthew Downhour @matthewdownhour.bsky.social · 1d

“If I sent Federal Law enforcement to a sleepy white small town to detain a bunch of people without warrants would anyone riot?”

No they would fucking shoot you

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