Personal account · Freelance composer in Québec, Canada · Progressive godless civil-libertarian · He/him · Seize the day, but not today, I’m tired · Music account: @music.joemcken.net » Personal site: https://joemcken.net » See 📌 post for socials & more
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Studies repeatedly show that most people age out of "hardcore" crime by their late 30s and 40s. And nobody is "born to be" a criminal. Even Trump, who is a hardcore criminal who has not aged out of his illicit behavoir, was not born like this. I blame his parents.
Sea Level xkcd.com/3135/
![Comic. [Two people on shore looking at body of water] PERSON 1: Hey, where’s that big island we were looking at this morning? PERSON 2 with short hair: Oh, it’s underwater. The ocean’s depth here goes up and down by like ten feet every day. PERSON 1: What? PERSON 2: It’s because the planet has a big moon orbiting near the surface. It causes weird gravity effects. PERSON 1: *What???* [caption] People here are used to them, but tides are one of the weirdest and most sci-fi elements of life on Earth.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreidj2tdqhkgoamiqf5reqt7kvbpt26x3cgjxsp4rtwwb46qumcltdq@jpeg "Click to view full size")
Apple is sneaking AI into everything. Turn off enhanced visual search on your photos:
KASIE HUNT: Over the summer you said, “There’s no vaccine that’s safe and effective”. Do you still believe that? RFK JR: “I never said that.” KASIE HUNT: “Play the clip.” RFK JR (clip): “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” (March 2024) ht: @cwebbonline.com
JFC
Here are Kristi Noem's quotes about Abrego Garcia that she claims were deceptively edited out. They're almost entirely lies and unsubstantiated charges. CBS was absolutely right to refrain from airing them. I did a quick fact check of the unaired comments: newrepublic.com/article/1998...
That's what the fucking Nazis said. Didn't save them, either.
There is nothing this simpleton loves more than rebranding things. He's like the David Zaslav of presidents
Remember when 4chan went offline earlier this year? A lot of researchers and reporters were eager to declare that 4chan was dead, or that it’d never be the same when it returned. Those obituaries were entirely premature. Quick look at @openmeasures.bsky.social openmeasures.io/4chan-returns/
Good for Illinois. Strong anti-SLAPPs laws are what gives the First Amendment its teeth. What good is the right of free speech if it takes years of litigation and hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a defendant out of a case?
The Trump administration used Benny Johnson's claims that his house was "burned to the ground" and that "people were murdered in my front yard" to justify its federal takeover of DC. @kenbensinger.bsky.social found out that Johnson made it all up. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/b...
Weird, putting tariffs on construction materials and throwing day laborers in concentration camps should have solved the supply problem by now
Good news about the cutting-edge AI tools from the $3-trillion-dollar company.
Big opening for, say, Brad Lander www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/n...
RIP Graham Greene. Every time he popped up on screen when I was a kid, my mom would excitedly point him out for being an actual Native on the screen. Able to be deadly serious and infinitely hilarious (even in smaller roles like Last of Us), he ate up the screen. Nʌki’wah brother.
Birb Sea pupper Birbs Sea puppers
We can laugh at this but my dog is vaccinated and she does the same thing every day and will only eat her special food
Me: i’m Autistic Them: Oh you take things literally Me: No that’s kleptomania
Courts still matter.
Promises made. Promises kept.
My feed isn't full of sludge I have 5x as many followers Experts actually engage in meaningful dialogue And there's no Nazis ........ Sounds like this app is thriving actually
In my estimation, a lot of the people who have problems with Bluesky are so used to platforms just serving up the content buffet that they're unwilling to do the work to have a good experience here. That work is the social part of social media.
These people are unrepentant racists but also too cowardly to use the slur they so desperately want to.
After banning visas for Palestinian children seeking medical care, the Trump administration is now banning any Palestinian passport holders from entering the United States. Extraordinary bigotry being converted into US policy. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/w...
we should bring back corruption as a liability for politicians
Somebody is throwing things out of a window of the White House wtaf
[CUE MUSIC: “IN THE ARMS OF AN ANGEL” PLAYING SOFTLY] [FADE IN BACKGROUND SOUND: A solemn voice reads names] Nate Silver. Matthew Yglesias. Megan McArdle. Mark Cuban. [FADE IN: SALLY STRUTHERS sits on a stool in a pool of light on a minimalist set. She looks SAD.] /1
The moment you realize the third ‘Ocean’s’ film is almost 20 years old
MAGA got everything they wanted out of Cracker Barrel and they still want to punish the company anyway. Just about the most predictable outcome you could imagine.
Hey, look, more Republican fuckery in God's forgotten state
This obviously speaks ill of Prasad, who’s a petty little conspiracy-peddling shitweasel, but it also speaks ill of YouTube that they acceded to his bullshit censorial demand and deleted not just the videos, but the critic’s entire channel (whilst blaming it on “copyright infringement”, of course).
This obviously speaks ill of Prasad, who’s a petty little conspiracy-peddling shitweasel, but it also speaks ill of YouTube that they acceded to his bullshit censorial demand and deleted not just the videos, but the critic’s entire channel (whilst blaming it on “copyright infringement”, of course).
OW fuck
This enormously pernicious and no one should still be on Substack - not just because of the Nazis, but for sheer practical business reasons.
No matter what @MarshaBlackburn keeps saying, it’s not criminals they’re targeting. www.cnn.com/2025/08/30/u...
They’ve presidentialized “Mayor”
Federal agents in DC have been starting dangerous car cases for small stuff like tinted windows. The chases violate DC police policy. Out of 10 cases, six ended in a crash. One car had a minor in back. www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...
This whole thing is great but the highlighted bit made me laugh out loud. 😂 Marlon on Snoop:
The headline calls this unexpected consequences, but I would call this extremely expected consequences.
Actually, Frankenstein is a doctor success at the Venice film festival
Every single US city needs to do this, and enforce it.
Pure fucking evil. Everyone involved in this shit needs to be held accountable.
This is the way
Just tell the cops the Ambien made you post it
‘Ocean’s Thirteen’ has guidance on what to do if you want to force your next-door hotel guest to vacate their room quickly
The thing about a lot of these never Trump Republicans is that, unlike a lot of institutionalist Dems who think the fever will break and we can all return to comity or whatever, these guys saw the rot up close and know the only appropriate response is to tear them out of government root and branch.
1. I’m not a politician. I’m a writer, reporter, and civil libertarian. 2. Majorities have been oppressing minorities for all of history. 3. Polls follow effective leaders. Shitty leaders follow polls. 4. Cuomo is also wrong about the polls.
NEW: my office has received disturbing whistleblower reports that the Trump administration plans to separate 700 children from their families, lawyers, and support systems. Disappearing vulnerable children beyond the reach of American law and oversight is beyond depravity.
Tennessee authorities say a cold-case investigation reveals that a sheriff who inspired a Hollywood movie about an organized crime-busting law enforcement officer actually killed his wife in 1967 and led people to believe she was murdered by his enemies.
The main things I know about Hunter Biden are (1) he likes to party (2) the worst people I know hate him and (3) he’s out here spitting fire about the consultant class of the Democratic Party
How does lava sound when it comes to the surface of the Earth? Listen to a lava flow oozing out of its effusive vent high on the southwestern side of #Etna, 28 August 2025. That day no visits by tourists were allowed on the site, which permitted this (relatively) clean recording
Solar panels are basically wireless receivers for a nuclear fusion power plant.
Goodness, if the President has a serious health problem I certainly hope he follows the expert medical advice of his Secretary of Health and Human Services
I’m glad this twerp lost the election but I sure wish he’d also lost his riding altogether so we’d never have to hear from him at all anymore
I dunno if Pritzker is angling for the Dem nomination in 2028, but he’s making a damn good argument for it if he is. I only wish there were more like him.
@veritasknight.bsky.social JD Vance gave an interview in which he said he was ready to replace Trump if he died, and it set everyone a-tizzy over the idea of Trump croaking (and whether Vance knows something the rest of us don’t, etc.) Far as I can tell it’s just speculation & fantasizing
The Gilded Rage
Something blue states will need to explore: how to create cross-state compacts dedicated to a functioning government as the Trump administration walks away from it's responsibilities.
Yesterday was the 11th anniversary of the biggest scandal of the Obama administration.
I’m so grateful that I have tenure and the academic freedom to call it like I see it. “Dr. Kathleen Bachynski, a professor of public health at Muhlenberg College, described Kennedy’s comments as “absolute gibberish” and slammed the HHS secretary as a “dangerous buffoon” who is “threatening us all.”
If you are okay with this, if you think this is justified, if you think people living on the street have brought this upon themselves, if you think this is good leadership, you may be able to fool yourself that you care about others but you don’t fool me
… Also, shouldn’t it be “Hat”? Or does @kenwhite.bsky.social appreciate the typo? 🤔
"One week after the acquisition, I showed up to the call and nobody came. I showed up the next week, and nobody came. I realized that nobody had cleared off their calendars or deactivated their Twitter accounts. They were just ghost accounts, and everyone was gone."
Hey, she’s one year *older* than me, that means I’m still young and facing a future of untapped potential!
you mean "we're all going to die" wasn't polling well?
Pete Hegesth keeps talking about a warrior culture, which apparently means masked man kidnapping our allies to send them to our enemies to be tortured. Absolutely shameful.
I seem to recall that every other nation on earth also has an abundance of “human heart” and mental health issues, yet they lack equivalent rates of gun violence. Someone should ask Mike Johnson why he’s implying the US has sicker hearts and minds than anywhere else on Earth.
I seem to recall that every other nation on earth also has an abundance of “human heart” and mental health issues, yet they lack equivalent rates of gun violence. Someone should ask Mike Johnson why he’s implying the US has sicker hearts and minds than anywhere else on Earth.
this garbage framing really needs to stop. it's not about crime. we know this. asking people how they feel about crime pretends that it is about crime. pretending it's about crime is supporting trump's framing. stop it.
No notes
Cops are great
Really hope the Wikimedia Foundation leadership has the spine to tell these sniveling weasels to go fuck themselves all the way to the sun.
Sums up America in 2025 pretty well I’d say
This is actually less an "end-run" and more "example #145,436,884 of how Congress repeatedly gave away its powers and hoped norms would just hold everything together and now they aren't." Congress lets POTUS petition for a clawback and withhold funding for 45 days during the process. But here?
BREAKING: The Gaza Health Ministry says more than 63,000 Palestinians have been killed as the Israel-Hamas war drags on.
Imagine someone wanting this so badly. Then imagine serving under them
There is no route out of fascism that involves sacrificing the vulnerable. All that does is tell the fascists that we're willing to turn on each other for the illusion of safety.
You’re driving everyone at home nuts singing these lyrics aloud right now, aren’t you
"Literally no one thinks prayer is a substitute for action." Then why is prayer, literally, *always* the substitute for action, you willfully obtuse asshole?
A brief attempt to put my own thoughts about what should happen to masked thugs who gladly rip families apart into writing: Iron maidens should be made real and put to practical use.
Lydia, the 16 year old who is more honest than most of our elected officials and the corporate media who cover the administration
I’m as much a godless secularist as anyone else, but this proposed law is just stupid, in addition to being a civil-liberties-violating dumpster fire. The CAQ really needs to fuck off with constantly trying to dictate how people can live their lives in public.
Another day, another political/legal body trying to undermine and destroy crucial components of the free Internet for the stupidest possible reasons.
DHS spox: “Unfortunately, the American people can no longer rely on journalists like Anna Merlin [sic], who has tweeted the F-word 67 times in her illustrious career at (checks notes)… Jezebel and Mother Jones.” These people are so weird!
🚨ICE agents are racially profiling and arresting Hispanic drivers in the DC area today, targeting work vehicles like trucks and vans. A friend who was targeted sent me video today. Here’s a picture that shows one of two agents before he pulled on his mask. Unmarked black Ford truck, plate: NTV9211.
With the AJC dropping its print edition, I feel compelled to share one of the greatest moments in print design history
They're openly calling to lock up every trans person by force. We need every ally to speak out forcefully against this because trans folks cannot do this on our own.
"Pat, why do you carry that ridiculous 600mm lens on long hikes?" Buddy, I can see mountains reflected in the eyes of a trailside pika.
Most heartbreaking image I’ve seen in years 💔
Have to admit I have only vaguely been aware of Matt Yglesias for years as some random blogger columnist and have never paid much attention to him beyond knowing people here dislike him. But my goodness this is stupid. Do people take this guy seriously?
Academics once loved Twitter—but in the age of X they’ve abandoned it in droves. www.wired.com/story/bluesk...
Well, dang. Not every day someone (or something they participate in) gets plugged by a president.
[Bill Cassidy looking down at corpse of chicken he has fucked to death]: That chicken should not have been fucked that hard
I am honestly starting to believe that Democrats may be the single most incompetent political party in modern world history. I can’t think of a single other party that would not only drop the ball this cataclysmically, but then not even TRY to pick it back up. Just doing absolutely NOTHING.