Question for @radiofreetom.bsky.social and any other Soviet-knowers: the CCCP govt. would frequently rename towns for industries when not naming them after Lenin/Stalin. Was there a Soviet equivalent of Huntsville/Rocketgrad?
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Question for @radiofreetom.bsky.social and any other Soviet-knowers: the CCCP govt. would frequently rename towns for industries when not naming them after Lenin/Stalin. Was there a Soviet equivalent of Huntsville/Rocketgrad?
There are days when I feel like NYT's framing, headlines etc. are crucial and need to be improved to better fight fascism. Then there are other days where I think who cares, people are just doing Wordle and reading bullshit
Guys, don't ever let imposter syndrome stop you. If this guy could get two degrees from Harvard then you're fine.
RFK Jr is full of shit (BREAKING) 1. How would Big Vax convince people that unvaccinated people got vaccine injuries? 2. The most common vaccine injury was an allergic reaction which is why you had to wait 15 minutes after the shot and they had Epi-pens on hand in case. They didn't hide it at all.
Read every single post in this @volts.wtf thread, which says all this better than me. 9/9/end bsky.app/profile/volt...
I can see people being annoyed with this or that aspect of the Covid response. But the demand that the people who led the response and saved millions must answer for their mistakes, while the ghouls who killed hundreds of thousands get to skate, is moral idiocy 8/9
And the people cashing in by monetizing conspiracy theory horseshit on Youtube, or selling ivermectin, or whipping up mistrust in order to win elections? Total scum. The worst kind of parasites. Putting them in charge of public health is something only a monster would do. 7/9
5) Covid was the deadliest thing to ever happen in American history. More deaths than the 1918 flu, more deaths than the civil war, more deaths than all the other wars America has fought put together. Erring on the side of caution was reasonable; pretending Covid wasn’t real was insane. 6/9
4) OTOH if you choose to deny reality, lots of people will die and you get an F. Masks and vaccines saved millions of American lives; the MAGA freakout against any kind of Covid control strategies killed hundreds of thousands, mostly of their own people. 5/9 jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
3) it’s really hard to get an A with a new virus (since you don’t yet know how to fight it) but if you are good at learning and adjusting, you should be able to get a B. This however erodes trust (“Yesterday you told us to do X and now you say we should do Y!”) and there’s really no way around it
Football game? Fine! Driving in a crowded car to/from the game? Bad! Outdoor church? Fine! Indoor church? Bad! You get the idea. You may feel good/bad about the meaning of this or that event, but the virus just wants to get in your lungs, which is easier outdoors than indoors 3/9
2) if you’re somewhere you might get Covid, the virus doesn’t care why you’re there. From the perspective of preventing Covid spread, outdoor BLM protest? Fine! Packed into a holding cell afterwards by the cops? Bad! Outdoor anti-mask protest? Fine! Gathering indoors afterwards? Bad! 2/9
As someone who worked on Covid, today’s discourse is driving me nuts so allow me to lay out a few facts: 1) Covid hardly ever spreads outdoors 🧵1/9 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33249484/
If Feds can show their faces when arresting the bosses of the Chicago Outfit and the Winter Hill Gang and the Sinaloa Cartel, then they can show their faces when arresting nannies and landscaping guys. 6/end
Here are clearly visible local cops and Feds arresting notorious crime boss Whitey Bulger. This photo in from an article which interviews and names the FBI agent who flew with Bulger on the extradition flight to Boston 5/ www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2015/08...
Here are clearly visible local cops and Feds arresting notorious terrorist Timothy McVeigh 4/
Here are clearly visible law enforcement officers (local? Feds? Not clear) arresting notorious mob kingpin Al Capone 3/
Here are clearly visible Feds taking notorious drug lord Rafa Caro Quintero into custody 2/
Yeah what if people found out who the Feds were who are arresting people? Anyway, here’s a photo *from ICE’s own website* showing clearly visible Feds taking notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman into custody 1/ www.ice.gov/news/release...
Masha Gessen got in trouble for saying that and, well, look at us now
This is one of my favorite articles by you from back in the day. Big rocks going up and down a hill. I haven't heard about this lately so I'm assuming it didn't pan out? www.vox.com/2016/4/28/11...
I definitely appreciate the tech advances that have made a clean future possible, but stone-age tech that a modern kid or an ancient Roman could mostly understand will always have a special place in my heart. "Oh, the sand stays hot for a long time? OK, I'm with you, that makes sense."
I can't stop laughing about this
There are dynamics re: population, tax levels, provider availability etc. that hurt EMS in any rural community but I wonder if in a place like Stevens County, this is a big part of the mix. Some locals don't want stuff to work if doing so would require outside help /end bsky.app/profile/dani...
My best guess for the future is that fire departments will still have money (because people live out in the woods) and they’ll provide wildly subpar service because that’s all they’ll be able to afford, and people with heart attacks etc. will die because the response time takes so long 14/
And the locals won't volunteer b/c they're too busy getting led around by Youtube and Facebook and Fox etc. etc. so the free labor that makes their low-tax system work is getting dried up by the same partisanship that attracted them to Stevens County in the first place 13/
So here’s Stevens County with a bunch of EMS providers trying to provide services with little/no revenue, making it (kind of) work with a volunteer model that is collapsing, and with county commissioners and voters who don’t want to fund things but want the things anyway 12/
Good vid here talking about this stuff 11/ www.youtube.com/watch?v=eds_...
One thing you could do was volunteer at the fire department. Most of the time you would hang out with the fellas, and maybe get a 911 call or two. But fire department volunteerism has gone through the floor (like other kinds of volunteerism) because people nowadays are looking at their phones 10/
3) Boredom helps volunteerism. Rural towns in olden timey days had grange halls and union halls and American Legion halls and Lions Club halls and this kind of hall and that kind of hall, plus churches and dances etc., because otherwise people would be bored out of their mind 9/
There’s nuance but basically paramedics can give you meds you haven’t been prescribed, and EMTs can’t. If I have a stroke I want a paramedic, but if it’s an EMT the hospital is 5 minutes away so my chances are still OK. But if I’m out in the woods? I want a paramedic, which the local FD can’t afford
2) you might be able to convince someone to volunteer to carry a hose and do CPR, but if they have paramedic certification, and the student loans that come along with the certification process, they need a salary. So rural EMS agencies with no $ are mostly volunteer EMTs with limited training. 7/
Three problems with this: 1) service levels under volunteers have never been great. There’s only so much you can expect from people who are working for free: timely, lifesaving, technically proficient emergency assistance is usually not one of those things. 6/
Rural fire and EMS have long depended on volunteers. Basically, rural areas don’t have enough people to provide the property tax revenue to support paid employees at their fire department, and the 911 call volume isn’t enough to make much money, so it’s volunteers or nothing 5/
Like other formerly rural places which a) have grown fast, b) need to upgrade their services, and c) are full of new people who moved there specifically to avoid taxes, Stevens County has some serious growing pains 4/
Then in the 80s the southern end of the county became an exurban haven for people fleeing the liberal hellhole of Spokane. Now the county is around 50K and seems like 60% suburban warriors with pavement princess King Ranch F350s who can’t go to the grocery store without at least a Glock 3/
Context: Stevens County is bigger than Delaware, and back in the day had under 20K people, mostly involved in logging and mining plus a few survivalists and weed/meth/etc. operations up in the hills. 2/
Strictly speaking this isn’t a hate-watch story about MAGA chuds getting what they deserve (the problems are structural and predate Trump) but it’s kind of Trump-adjacent. Stevens County ambulance service is about to collapse 1/ www.spokesman.com/stories/2025...
Studied Marxist-Leninist governments and their thriving democratic traditions?
Giving directions to the 7-11 to a short scruffy blond guy the night before Nirvana played Spokane in 1994, thinking he was trying way too hard to look like Kurt Cobain, watching him leave and wondering if it actually was him, then seeing the concert the next night and realizing it probably was.
OK people, I have a plan. I'm putting together a special team, of women who will go around picking up MAGA chuds so they commit suicide/die of shame. Bonus points if you're trans or have blue hair or got a lit degree from Oberlin
So a fire crew told to drop tools on an active fire by a few Border Patrol guys who haul off some of their teammates and order the rest around? That checks every box for pissing these guys off. It’s a complete betrayal. 5/7 bsky.app/profile/casc...
Great idea, sir. You should direct the parade personally to make sure it's done right
TBH I’m a little surprised the crew chief even let BP get out of their cars. There’s a BP office up the road in Port Angeles and if I worked there, I’d be clearing brush around my house right now b/c things might mysteriously catch on fire and the response might be a tad slow 7/7/end
Also, as a general rule you don’t disrespect firefighters if you live in the woods. The locals might shit on other govt. workers but they know it’s fire country and the fire district keeps them from burning down. Plus that kid on the fire line is also the EMT who gave their dad CPR a few years back
So a fire crew told to drop tools on an active fire by a few Border Patrol guys who haul off some of their teammates and order the rest around? That checks every box for pissing these guys off. It’s a complete betrayal. 5/7 bsky.app/profile/casc...
Anyway, if you want to know who these guys really hate, it’s a) clueless non-fire govt. bureaucrats who tell them how to do their job, and b) anyone messing with fire operations somehow, usually via strait arson or via the obstructing the response (e.g. flying a drone and screwing up water drops) 4/
They’re also breathing toxic smoke and getting more aware of the long-term risks. Some are old school and are sure smoke is fine since they and their dad and granddad all breathed it, some are young dumbasses who feel immortal, some take it seriously. It’s a mixed bag. 3/7
Rural fire guys lean Republican and they love goofy conspiracy theories (ask them about the moon landing), but they’re also public-spirited—they put their lives on the line for their community. So in my experience they aren’t MAGA-type bullies and have little respect for people who are 2/7
I’m in the Pacific time zone so the day is still young. I talk to a lot of rural hospitals and fire/EMS departments as part of my work, and so far I’ve heard from four firefighters about this. These guys are *ripshit* angry 🧵1/7 bsky.app/profile/reic...
"Yeah, what if, some time in the distant future, the government of Israel was right wing and racist? That would definitely be bad" Fire this asshole into the sun
RFK Jr. in the airport, looking up from a roadkill sandwich at tired kids who just got off an economy flight from Denver, deciding they need to be bled with leaches, which as luck would have it are also in his sandwich
Guy with a face like a catcher's mitt and a voice like a garbage disposal and a roadkill/heroin diet, looking at tired kids who just got off a long uncomfortable economy class flight from Denver: "These kids have something wrong with their mitochondria!" Of course he runs HHS.
OK, so early in this podcast by @chrislhayes.bsky.social, @billmckibben.bsky.social mentions a Google nuke project that will make 0.5GW of power when it fires up in 10 years. Meanwhile China alone was adding 3GW of solar EACH DAY a few months back. The nuclear focus vs renewables is just weird.
Chicago and NYC building their arsenals in case Trump gets any ideas
Amusing (?) that the people who have gutted USAID and FEMA and Medicaid and any other attempts to help people in crisis, and who saw masks and vaccines as tyranny 4 years ago, and who hate everything from gun control to speed limits, are concerned with the common good
Just for context as to how degenerate this is, in 2004 Israel blew up the head of Hamas and 9 bystanders, and the Bush administration (!) voiced their displeasure with it www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna4579005
Not many people know this, but the New Deal started with FDR's famous "Is this thing on? Hello?" speech
If Sisi had any vision at all beyond arresting everybody, Egypt would rule the world by 2030 or so
Two colons in the same sentence. And there's no way to read the sentence immediately before this one without giggling. My apologies, I will try to do better next time.
Follow-up question: this rapid response task force: what's it up to lately?
S. Africa too, but Ramaphosa needs to kick some ass over at Eskom so they get their shit together and get off coal
I wish there was a casino where I could put down a few bucks with zillion-to-one odds on, like, Algeria or Sudan or Namibia harnessing solar energy and becoming an industrial superpower. On the one hand, unrest, state capacity, corruption, colonial legacies etc. On the other hand:
Do the synthetic voters cast real votes?
Talk to @abuaardvark.bsky.social who moved there a little while back
No they can't. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Us Yankees have been the main characters for so long that it's disorienting to realize that, on this issue, the fact that Trump sucks doesn't matter nearly as much as the good progress that China and the rest of the world are making. Tough to root for Xi Jinping but it is what it is
Lots to choose from, but for me the most amazing part is "sorry, we didn't mean to kill the journalists, we only meant to bomb the hospital full of civilians we shot and kids we starved, which has no essential drugs or equipment thanks to our blockade" said as if that makes Israel look good
"Sorry, we didn't mean to kill the journalists, we only meant to bomb the hospital" Even if this horseshit excuse is in fact true, is this supposed to make Israel sound good?
Look, if ICE was defending the homeland from hideous fascist ghouls like the one in the poster then sign me up
I understand the right wing media bubble thesis but it only goes so far. Every one of these vicious idiots consumes MAGA bullshit on their phone, and could find the truth in a few minutes on the same phone. They don't want to. They keep eating the bullshit because they like how it tastes.
Not a real DC crime wave until they break out the half smokes
The same charges? Is... is DC seeing a crime wave of copycat sandwich assaults?
Slightly diminish a band: Circumstance's Child The Placebo Samsara
Not sure if there's a term for the labor version of the imperial boomerang, but US employers learning from Saudi slavedrivers surely fits the concept
This is comically bad. I worked on labor migration to the Persian Gulf, and saddling workers with bogus debt is *the* main path to the slavery-esque bullshit downstream. Step 1: recruit a guy, send him overseas Step 2: "you owe us (preposterous sum) so you can't leave" jacobin.com/2025/08/corp...
Depends on the ingredients. Could be tons of unhealthy cholesterol and trans fats in there.
Saw that same show up at the Gorge Amphitheater. 92 or 93, right? Anyway I thought Spin Doctors were boring but Soul Asylum and (particularly) the Trees kicked my ass
I kind of suspect that, since Trump never needs to face the voters again, and quite possibly could rig future elections, and SCOTUS will let him do whatever, that at this point he's just managing courtier politics and this is him throwing a bone to Stephen Miller or Marc Andreessen or whoever
You're laughing? Big Balls got fucked up by a 15 year old girl and highly trained FBI investigators are forced to be graveyard shift beat cops and Feds in full battle rattle are taking Black Forest Ham footlongs right to the chest and you're LAUGHING?
Clearly you'd also need to address problems with the courts, strategically times retirements/deaths, etc. But assuming that, it would be nice if investigation/ prosecution/ impeachment/ removal didn't hinge entirely on which party was in charge
Hypothetical: give the judiciary prosecutorial power, sort of a second Attorney General + helpers to bring cases against the executive branch/Congress when those branches were killing investigations into their own wrongdoing. Also let the judiciary impeach and remove.
Gotta go a lot faster than 25 on the Highway to the Danger Zone
@michaelhobbes.bsky.social what if our Top Gun pilots have to go over 25 to fight the bad guys huh what then
Receipts here, and a lot of other places, on the diet quote. Israel has been counting calories in Gaza for years in the creepiest way possible. They know exactly what they're doing. (Also, not to be That Guy, but it was 17 years before the 2023 attack, not 13) www.bbc.com/news/world-m...
I've been thinking about this and I can't think of anything in the history of the aid sector as evil as GHF. Not creepy evangelical shit, not half-assed programs mostly interested in PR, not Cold War era projects propping up bad regimes. Everyone involved with GHF is going to hell.
Here's an example from @georgemonbiot.bsky.social. But if the thread is right and we could have enough food locally, that changes things. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Super interesting thread which I would like to see put up against the (plausible to me, a non-expert) @georgemonbiot.bsky.social thesis that (tldr) we don't want to shift away from industrial ag because local farming can't produce enough food so it would = mass starvation
So I guess we're looking at Irish and Canadian universities? Someplace where they won't be expelled/arrested for wanting the truth
If I want my kids to think that genocide is good and vaccines don't work and trans people aren't real and global warming is fake and the 2020 election was stolen, I can just have them watch Fox News for free. I'm not going 5 or 6 figures in debt so they can learn that in college. Fuck that.
This piece is really good at spelling out exactly where academia is (nowhere good). My kids will be college age soon, and if I'm going to go into debt paying for that I'd like them to get a useful education where they learn true things, and I kind of doubt they'll get that in America.
I generally like Tooze but this piece was dumb as hell
Every one of these goofs right before the Chotiner interview starts
I have heard anecdotally that people who burn up in wildfires have worse health outcomes. EPA can you look into this?
Not the main point for this utterly vile post that would make David Irving proud, but lol the ratio
I'm honestly impressed with Seattle's east side suburbs voting to extend light rail across the lake, because I remember convos with people in gated communities in Bellevue who were convinced that at any moment the Crips were going to drive from the Central District across the bridge and rob them
Maybe he would feel better if he realized a ride on Metro costs 7 quarters? Surely blacks can't afford that many quarters!
If you move somewhere that doesn't have a kabaa you can create your own!
Not a seismologist but I was in a 7.8 once (Nepal 2015, would not recommend) and it was hard to stand up. An 8.8 is 32x as powerful per the Wikipedia article about these scales. I can't get my head around that. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_...
I should say that I massively underestimated how evil they are. I thought they would be a half-assed relief effort mostly concerned with PR (a common occupational hazard), not a tool to lure Palestinians in order to facilitate mass shootings