#Alaska you make me teary eyed with how greatly I love you right now. Really well done.💞😘💞😎💞
— tmccarthy (@teemccarthy.bsky.social) August 14, 2025 at 10:10 PM
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taking awhile, but the stove’s really starting to heat up now
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) August 14, 2025 at 3:23 PM
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All stick, carrots too expensive now
— NO DISASSEMBLE (@isthisrob.bsky.social) August 14, 2025 at 3:25 PM
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"The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it." – attributed to George Orwell
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) August 14, 2025 at 2:50 PM
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BREAKING: A federal judge strikes down two Trump administration actions aimed at ending diversity programs at schools and colleges.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) August 14, 2025 at 5:24 PM
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As National Guard troops deploy across Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser is responding with relative restraint as the unprecedented incursion takes place. The approach underscores the reality of the city's precarious position under the thumb of the federal government.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) August 14, 2025 at 9:21 AM
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Judge Orders Liquidation of Infowars to Pay Sandy Hook Families www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/u…
— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd.bsky.social) August 14, 2025 at 5:50 PM
I’ll believe it when it happens, but good for this judge:
… A Texas judge on Wednesday ordered that all assets from the website, founded and operated by the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, be turned over to a court-ordered receiver. That person would then sell them to help pay 10 families who lost children in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.
The families were awarded over $1.4 billion in damages in 2022 after they sued Mr. Jones for defamation. He had claimed for years that the shooting, in which 20 first graders and six educators died, was a hoax, and that family members of the victims were actors in a plot to enact extreme gun control legislation.
The ruling instructs the receiver to take possession of Free Speech Systems, the parent company of Infowars, within a matter of days, and to seize the company’s physical equipment, like mixing boards and microphones, as well as its intellectual property…
“The receiver is now authorized to liquidate his business assets,” Mr. Mattei said. “We look forward to the corrupt media empire that Jones built finally being dismantled.”
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On The Road – Elma – Cool City Yarn-bombs
Baud
Alaska = West Russia by the end of the day.
Baud
Speaking of West Russia, I watched a drone video of Kamchatka recently. Amazing, otherworldly scenery.
Betty Cracker
It’s maddening that Alex Jones has been able to evade accountability for so long. ETA: The Onion is supposedly in line to buy the InfoWars site. That would be fitting, if it happens. Like you, AL, I’ll believe it when I see it, which is a sad commentary on the state of the system.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Next Republican nominee
OT I am in India right now and T2.0 has managed to piss off another country with elephantine memory that nurses grudges for thousands of years. T2.0 is going to be the gift that keeps on giving for a long time.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
If we get a Dem president in 2029, everyone is going to demand he or she fix everything Trump broke. Many people who caved to Trump will feel brave to stand up to us.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yep, deeply stupid and unserious people are the bane of our existence.
Rusty
@Baud: Every reporter that was a meek stenographer to Trump will suddenly be slamming the next Democratic president and claiming, “see, I stand up to power!” It’s as predictable as the coming of the next season.
Baud
@Rusty:
And any exercise of presidential power will be cast as the same as everything Trump did, yet still worse.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Ds need to treat the MSM as the opposition party because they are that.
Gvg
It should not have been possible for that theory to take root among a large number of people. Alex Jones is a barbarian to even suggest that and so are the people who wanted to believe it. We had many confirmed shootings before that, and there was no reason it could not happen.
The culture needs to change. Not too long ago gun safety was taken more seriously. Now, they won’t even allow requirements for safety courses or mental health requirements or vision or past violent offenses. I get that all of those can be misused against minorities or others too, like anything, but we need to try because domestic violence is real.
Also the damn carelessness they embrace and no longer condem is just going to lead ( or is already leading to ) a backlash where guns get banned totally, or another stupid culture war with no resolution.
Betty Cracker
@Gvg: I’ve mentioned this here before, but several years ago, This American Life did some episodes about the Sandy Hook fallout that were eye-opening and disturbing. They talked to grieving parents and told stories about the kooks who believed Jones’s lies and harassed the families. It wasn’t exactly uplifting but worth hearing if you want insight into how this madness spreads.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Ds need to do a lot of things they won’t or can’t do.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: May be not this version of D party. The INC went from a decorous organization of lawyers and other Indian professionals writing letters to the British Parliament to an organization that shook the foundations of the British Empire.
Princess
@Baud: If it’s true that Trump is going to cede Alaska rare earth mineral rights to Putin, that’s going to become if not literally true, at least effectively true. China wants rare earth minerals from Canada and Canada is reluctant because it basically means letting them run the show re environmental protections, planning, building, labour etc.
Ramalama
@Princess: Canada might also be reluctant because China executed (bogus charges) Canadian citizens, of Chinese origin, who were traveling in China.
China was found to be secretly jailing people on Canadian soil, too.
Baud
Anyone else notice how libertarians go into hibernation whenever Republicans are in power?
I think they learned it from the bears.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: As does the adversarial media.
Ramalama
@Betty Cracker: This American Life did a great job with that episode.
They did an early days explainer on the Proud Boys, too, which should serve as the primer for everyone on how things you see coming from a mile away arrive at their logical conclusion.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
Grudges sound good to me.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
The Grand Jury requirement in the Bill of Rights finally getting a workout. Go Framers!
prostratedragon
Olga Nesterova:
Baud
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Sandy Hook and the follow up crap with that man convinced me this country was broken.
Then we elected P-Tape, not once, but twice. Little did I know.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
100%
And IMHO people are too distracted debating what’s broken to start fixing things.
Betty Cracker
@prostratedragon: Grotesque. Putin will run circles around the orange fart cloud. Any reasonably bright toddler could outwit the grasping rube, who would sell Alaska for a few more golden gee-gaws to decorate the Oval Office.
TONYG
Well, Real Americans don’t eat vegetables, so this won’t be any problem for Trump.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: I’m curious: is there much commentary in India on Trump’s mental capacities?
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Gross, but I wonder if there really are tens of thousands of white South Africans who want to move here?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Good question. I’m just happy the next Dem president will have a chance to burnish their anti-immigrant bona fides by kicking them out.
TONYG
@Baud: Well, actually, a lot of “libertarians” support police oppression as long as it’s directed at the Wrong People.
Baud
@TONYG:
Government so small its bathtub only has room to drown those people.
clay
@Baud: Wouldn’t it be East Russia?
Another Scott
@Gvg: The embrace of lying by the political (and economic) right over the last 50-75-100+ years has gotten stronger and stronger. And more dangerous.
What can we do?
PsychologyToday.com (from 2019):
Makes sense. But the MotUs seem to be moving us in the opposite direction, what with LLMs giving wrong and sometimes hurtful answers that people accept without even reading or thinking about…
[sigh]
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Betty Cracker: I spent 6 months there in 2022 and am highly skeptical anywhere near that number would move here. In fact it wouldn’t surprise me if just a handful of crackpots take us up on the offer. One major barrier is the cost of living – the exchange rate is like 16 Rand to a dollar. Everything is super affordable if you’re starting with US$ but that effect works in reverse for people coming here.
Most of them – at least the ones I met – were kind hearted sensible people. What incentive do folks like that have to move to the US right now?
I’m sure there are still white supremacists there but like here I imagine they are very provincial and don’t know much of anything beyond their little corner of the world and would vastly prefer re-establishing apartheid there to coming here. So nobody my guess is very few come.
prostratedragon
Another little poisoned dart:
Baud
@clay:
My globe is upside down.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: No but people are mad about the tariffs. Because the Indian MSM had fed them about stories of the great friendship between T and M
And it brings backs the collective memories of the darkest days of Vicky’s Empire. When Britain used tariffs to break the back of Indian textile industry.
Deputinize America
@Baud:
My pedantry is such that I say that Kamchatka is the far east….
Another Scott
@Baud: Correct Maps Matter.
Reuters.com:
Just Say No to Mercator!!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
Did we talk about this? (Source: The Guardian)
Not particularly a fan of Hunter Biden, but he had exactly the right response to that nonsense:
She threatened to sue for $1B! I’m not a lawyer, but it sounds like the Third Lady is on shaky ground since the younger Biden was citing numerous published reports, not making shit up out of thin air. Also, there are numerous images out there of Melania scowling at cameras in the company of Epstein and Maxwell. Depositions would be…interesting.
I’m convinced it’s a bluff, but was it smart for the Third Lady to bring up Epstein again? Maybe she has her own agenda and doesn’t care how it reflects on her shitty husband.
Booger
@Baud: So we can finally find out the truth about being able to indict a ham sandwich?
Betty
@Another Scott: The slowing down does happen on Threads when you insult a Republican. They will ask you if you really want to call Tommy Tuberville ignorant. They then let you do it, but there is that disapproving schoolmarm sense to it.
Scout211
That’s gotta hurt, Trump. Remember when you said she’s no longer HOT? Well, she’s still 🔥.
Baud
@Another Scott:
There’s no alternative to Mercator for certain purposes. It’s math.
JML
@TONYG: yeah, the people currently claiming to be libertarians just want to be able to smoke pot, be racist, and not pay taxes. the rest of the tenets of the ideology don’t allow them to fuck with other people’s lives enough to be supported.
Aussie Sheila
@Betty Cracker:
Well if she goes ahead Biden Jnr will have the legal right of being able to force discovery. What a delightful shitshow.
But like her husband I’m sure she she’ll taco it.
Let’s see if her lawyers are any better than her husband’s. She better hope so.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I agree with avoiding it for school wall and textbook world maps, and for most purposes where you want a static world map. The Equal Earth projection is a good alternative, too, that’s a solid one though there are many they could have picked to advocate.
Geo Wilcox
@Baud: Yes and like with Obama many on the left will not vote in 2030 so the house and senate will be gop again. The left has the patience of a 5 year old in a candy store.
JML
@Betty Cracker: I think this is a bluff. Hunter Biden doesn’t need/want anything from the administration, which is the only reason the suits against corporate tools like CBS worked as de facto bribes. I suspect Hunter would be able to raise the funds to defend a lawsuit because it would open Melania and everyone in her circle up to depositions, which none of them want to actually face. This kind of threat only works on people who have no access to resources, or need something from administration badly enough they’re willing to pay the bribe.
Hunter got no fucks left.
Baud
@Geo Wilcox:
Can’t control other people. I just more liberals to be prepared for and learn to deal with how things are and will be.
p.a.
@JML: What’s a libertarian to do when his well-armed neighbor turns his property into a dioxin dump?
Betty Cracker
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I suspect you’re right that we’ll get the dregs of that society
@JML: Great point. He doesn’t need anything from them.
Aussie Sheila
@JML:
Indeed. It is to laugh. She and her criminal husband are only good for law suits against people whose pockets aren’t deep and whose patience is short.
I have no doubt Biden Jnr, no matter how much he is a personal clusterfuck, lacks neither.
Good on him.
Another Scott
@Baud: Eh? What are those “certain purposes”?
More words, please.
There seem to be lots and lots of different projections that are designed to satisfy various constraints (equal area, equidistant, parallels being parallel, size of the oceans vs land, etc., etc.).
Equal Earth seems to have a lot of benefits.
Best wishes,
Scott.
RandomMonster
Wouldn’t that be East Russia by Moscow reckoning?
Also by the end of the day: Trump orders US West Coast to be named US East Coast to align with Moscow-centered new world order.
Baud
@Another Scott:
It’s the best map for navigation. That’s why it became the standard.
Another Scott
@Baud: Ok. Still, that’s not much of a constraint these days of supercomputers in our pockets.
Unless one wants to go to New Zealand, I guess.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Baud: If the Supreme Court really believed in the “unitary executive” theory of power, they would have ruled Biden’s student loan forgiveness program constitutional. The president only has the power to do things they agree with.
Baud
@Soprano2:
And?
Soprano2
@Baud: Most of them are Republicans who call themselves libertarians because they think that sounds cooler. Real libertarians were for abortion rights, for example, but most of these “cosplay” libertarians are against them.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: The press is only adversarial when they don’t get the access they want. I truly believe the main reason the press is friendly to FFOTUS is because he gives them a lot of access to himself; even if the things he babbles don’t make sense, it makes them feel important to have that access. I think this is something Democrats should learn from.
different-church-lady
@Baud: You’re a day late.
Soprano2
@Baud: I think it depends. If one side wants something to stay broken, that makes it a lot harder to fix. R’s want a lot of things to stay broken. Since the 1990’s, every time Congress has tried to do some type of reasonable immigration reform, R’s make sure it doesn’t happen. They want it to be broken.
mappy!
39% ?
Great way to get magat’s attention. An army marches on it’s stomach.
I guess putting all those brown people onto planes to Sudan might not have been such a good idea after all. 39% isn’t just groceries. It’s restaurants, diners, hotels, food trucks… Of course the food processing giants are going to have to get in on the profits too. The other shoe might be when some light is thrown on who owns the biggest agricultural & food distribution companies… Follow the grift?
Stock up on popcorn now. Veggies were cheaper under Biden and Obama. ; – )
different-church-lady
@Betty: It would make realize I shouldn’t just call him ignorant, I should back it up with citations.
narya
@Betty Cracker: The thing about Hunter is that, if he continues working whatever program he’s working, will have no fucks to give. Much as I despise that Nietzsche quote, Going Through Some Shit, AND taking the opportunity to learn from it, has a way of insulating a person.
Soprano2
@Another Scott: Any time I read something that sounds too good to be true, I try to research it more before sharing, and I often find it’s not true. They do that deliberately to encourage “engagement”.
Gin & Tonic
I’m just dying to see Melania’s lawyers demonstrate the “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” she experienced from Hunter Biden saying what everybody already knows.
RevRick
@Geminid: Despite the lack of reporting on Trump’s mental decline in our MSM, the most recent Pew poll indicates that the majority of Americans are noticing. By a 51-48 margin, they are disagreeing with the opinion that he is mentally sharp.
WaterGirl
@JML: @Betty Cracker:
If Melania calls Hunter out about that again or if she actually files a suit, Hunters only response should be “I will look forward to discovery and the depositions under oath.”
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Best for navigation in the age of sail, where courses were plotted manually as made of segments of constant bearing (rhumblines).
It’s used much less for world maps today than most people think except in informal decorative contexts. But one area where a variant of it is used a lot is in computer mapping applications. That’s because the Mercator is a map that will zoom in smoothly to a small-scale map of any local area that represents shapes accurately and has North up. That’s a nice property. For things like the Google Maps app you usually don’t care that its world view has relative size distortions.
Soprano2
@Baud: Huh?
Matt McIrvin
(Though technically, what Google uses is not Mercator but “Web Mercator”, and the difference has to do with how it handles Earth’s deviation from being a perfect sphere.)
prostratedragon
@RevRick: A nonreader friend brought it up this week, wondering if people really aren’t talking or writing about it. Time to start dragging those who pretend not to see it.
LAC
@Soprano2: Trump gives the media access? His idea of access is to let the likes of OAN and newsmax sit there and ask fawning questions, to allow barely any legitimate questions by other news orgs, to insult reporters for any pushback. This is the access that a democratic administration should mimic?
RevRick
@Baud: No, it’s just your inertial frame of reference that’s upside down.
Geminid
@RevRick: I wonder what those numbers will be like this time next year.
I don’t watch Trump much. I typically don’t watch video and rely on text reporting. But I just re-upped my monthly phone plan and I have plenty of high speed data, so I think I’ll watch that press conference today.
I’ll also see what security reporter Laura Rozen has to say about it. Last night she remarked that a Trump/Putin press conference could be even worse an idea than the meeting itself.
MagdaInBlack
@WaterGirl: And it was. He basically said ” Oh yes, lets do this. Discovery gonna be lit.”
Eunicecycle
@RevRick: it’s kind of scary that 48% think he IS mentally sharp, though!
prostratedragon
@Eunicecycle:
“Dance of Terror,” Falla
Jackie
@Betty Cracker:
I LOLOL at Biden’s stating he’s ready to see Melania be dispositioned under oath re her hubby’s relationship with Epstein and Maxwell.
frosty
@Baud: True. Mercator was designed for navigation; it doesn’t need to be on a classroom wall.
The Audacity of Krope
It’s all relative. People may be grading on a curve based on the fact he’s always been a moron.
Betty Cracker
@LAC: I think it’s entirely possible MSM reporters don’t mind the abuse — in their view, it burnishes their brand as intrepid reporters speaking truth to power. I don’t think a Dem president needs to “imitate” Trump — heaven forfend! But frequent media access with less scripted, more entertaining interactions isn’t a bad idea, and maybe choosing candidates with great communication skills is necessary in this admittedly degraded era. I’d love to see a Democratic president push back hard on “both sides” framing or forcefully call out Republican lies, for example.
RevRick
@Eunicecycle: Only 26% assert that it’s definitely true, while another 22% say it’s somewhat true. And those numbers correspond to Republicans and Republican leaners. So those numbers suggest that even some Republicans are having their doubts.
stinger
@Betty Cracker:
I’ve seen her naked pics, so what reputation, exactly?
The Audacity of Krope
It’s usually good to focus on the positive. But not for the benefit of MAGAts. Let’s forget the pictures.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Betty Cracker:
We have not and should if for nothing else than the wonderfully succinct reply:
We should pick that up and use it elsewhere…with abandon. Amazing how applicable those two words could be.
RevRick
While Trump rants about how unsafe DC is, the fact of the matter is that the federal government runs the show. A month ago, the Republicans passed a bill that prevents DC from spending a billion of its own tax dollars which were allocated for police, schools and infrastructure. And the home rule charter prevents them from assessing income tax on commuters who work in the city. So, the district is forced to work with one arm tied behind its back and then gets punished if it’s unsuccessful.
David Collier-Brown
@Soprano2: In Europe the Pirate Party is libertarian and, like other libertarian groups on the continent, is considered “left wing”.
The pirates say they’re not a bird (:-))
(The pirates have had members in the European Parliament since 2009, variously from Iceland and the Czech Republic)
Geminid
I just wish TV news shows and other visual platforms would overlay maps of a foreign nation they report upon over a map of the U.S. It’s easy to underestimate the size of countries at lower latitudes. When Syria hit the news last December, I looked up its area and found it was close to Florida’s.* Syria is more compact but still, it’s a good sized country and bigger than I thought.
I think if Americans had seen a map of Iraq overlaid on one of the U.S. they would have had a better idea of what George W. Bush was getting us into.
* Syria’s population is also comparable to Florida’s, at around 25 million people.
Baud
@Geminid:
And ISIS of Syria is comparable to the Florida Republican Party.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: Ooh, more Hunter content!
Geminid
@Baud: ISIS still has a significant presence in eastern Syria and western Iraq. They made some news yesterday when they declared that Syria’s interim president, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, is an apostate.
Captain C
@Baud: If FFOTUS tries that, Alaska may go blue for at least a generation.
Captain C
@Baud: The right people are exercising power, if you know what I mean…
Soprano2
@LAC: Haven’t you read the things the press says? They happily talk about how he answers their questions and talks to them all the time, as opposed to those mean Democratic presidents who rarely talk to them and evidently make them feel unimportant. I’m not talking about the right wingers, I’m talking about the NY Times and WaPo and reporters with TV news programs and others. I’ve read a lot of comments (always anonymous, of course) like this.
Captain C
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t think it’s the same thing, but I saw a very similar projection used decades ago in an interesting maps book that I had. I can’t recall the name but it had a bunch of different maps, ranging from relative armed forces to what countries produce to various population distributions and so forth.
Captain C
@Betty Cracker: I still think the FTFNYT should be ostracized, though. If it weren’t illegal and probably unethical, the FTFNYT should be taken from the Sulzbergers and put into a nonprofit trust dedicated to actual good reporting. The Sulzbergers, Joe Kahn, and whatever benighted asshole is running their op-ed page should be banned from journalism down to and including Pennysaver flyers.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: This is what I mean by learning from it. Almost completely shutting out the press didn’t seem to do Biden any good at all; it pisses them off and makes them think you’re hiding things from them. It also means it’s harder for us to get our message out.
Steve LaBonne
@Soprano2: I don’t believe for a minute that they would behave better if they had more access. That’s a lame excuse which fails to hide the reality that they’re simply playing for the other team.
ruckus
@Rusty:
A lot of the press is owned by conservatives. And they want to sell newspapers, lots of them. A lot of those conservatives have made a rather significant amount of money over time selling their bullshit.
@Gvg:
Alex Jones is a bit player in the concept. Sure that bit helped their concept of bullshit – which is that only they can protect all of us from the liberal hoard. You know people that want to live in an actual, operational, democracy, where the only people that don’t prosper are the ideological jackasses like Alex Jones. The sellers of lies and bullshit. And of course they don’t believe their own bullshit but they are making money selling that bullshit. So they couldn’t care less that it’s bullshit. Or they might actually believe their own bullshit. Doesn’t make it any less bull and shit.
A liberal democracy will always be a tough government to operate because there is less opportunity for people to sell their lies and bullshit, which will cause them to yell and scream and try and sell more lies and bullshit. It’s humanity, there will always be jackasses trying to sell their bullshit to make money for 2 reasons, first, they believe their BS, second they make money selling their BS, because there will always be people that can’t understand that government shouldn’t be for sale and will pay whatever because that is then their government. Never mind that we pay taxes and hold elections to hire people to work for the betterment of all, they only care about the betterment of them. And betterment for them means to them that there is no one to stand in their way, to make things better for all. They don’t give a rats ass about anyone else, they want to be given everything.
ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
Oh they are serious. Seriously greedy and seriously stupid.
One of the banes of this country is the concept that we are all equal. It is a great concept but some humans never, ever will think they are equal to the people they hate. And of course they aren’t because the reason they hate those people is because those people are actual humans, with the concept that equality is proper and the rule of the land. The pompous, arrogant jackasses that believe that they are the greatest beings, all the while hating 3/4 (or more) of the population are THE PROBLEM. They are the people that wouldn’t mind living in a dictatorship, as long as they are the top of the food chain. Their main problem is that for them equal is as good as it gets because they have no skills other than racism and hate. Such as it has always been.
Iron city
@Captain C: Oh nos! What ever will the Thrifty Nickel fish wrapper do?
DessertStorm
@clay: It would be. I always get confused when looking on a map of the Pacific ocean. East Asia is west and the West Coast is east. I’m always tricked by the weather maps because they don’t recognize that and the huge storm in the west Pacific is not going to blow into California.