I hate to say it, but Threads is now the-new-version-of-the-old-Twitter. Aka, all walks of life are on it. I wish it had been Bluesky, but sadly it is not. (But I do prefer Bluesky over Threads…)
City of Los Angeles for the past couple decades.
2,029 followers 45 following 48,419 posts
view profile on Bluesky
I hate to say it, but Threads is now the-new-version-of-the-old-Twitter. Aka, all walks of life are on it. I wish it had been Bluesky, but sadly it is not. (But I do prefer Bluesky over Threads…)
“Massachusetts stopped allowing time-of-day drink discounts in 1984 after a fatal drunken-driving incident, and some other states followed. The proposal from Cyr, the state senator, would allow municipalities to make their own choice about allowing happy-hour deals or not.”
“Soelberg, a 56-year-old tech industry veteran with a history of mental instability, thought everyone was turning on him: residents in his hometown of Old Greenwich, Conn., an ex-girlfriend—even his own mother. He shared suspicions with ChatGPT. At almost every turn, the chatbot agreed with him.“
“Some retailers report consumers have accepted price increases, while others see middle- and lower-income shoppers pulling back.”
“U.S. companies, including Hormel, Ace Hardware and J.M. Smucker, announced they are raising prices on consumer goods. Companies cite reasons such as tariffs and rising costs for meat, pork, nuts and other commodities as reasons for the increases.” www.wsj.com/business/ret...
“Some countries are wary of accepting Palestinians, fearing it might be viewed as aiding ethnic-cleansing efforts.”
“Many Gazans struggle to leave the enclave for urgent medical care due to bureaucratic hurdles and security screenings. More than 34,000 Gazans have been evacuated since the war’s start, but over 14,000 still need medical evacuation.”
“An open-seat contest for Minnesota governor would be a new headache for Democrats in next year’s midterm elections, launching a potentially expensive primary that could drain Democratic resources in the state and nationally.”
“A source close to Walz said many of the state’s top Democrats are urging him to run, and he may be leaning that way.”
“Now, Walz isn’t even sure he’ll run for governor. In an interview, he said he’s “totally undecided” whether to seek a third term and will announce his decision in early September. He acknowledged his national bid may have hurt him a bit at home.”
“Men—whom Walz was supposed to help draw to the Demo ticket because of his experience as a high-school football coach and hunter—were especially disapproving and skeptical of him running for governor again after appearing alongside Harris in her failed White House bid.” www.wsj.com/politics/ele...
Yup: bsky.app/profile/torr...
“The couple had not been planning for a child and had no idea that Ms. Thompson was pregnant. “Even the nurses at the hospital were like, ‘You don’t look like you were pregnant at all,’” Ms. Thompson, 37, who works in medical billing, said, adding, “I didn’t have any symptoms.”
“But by removing the plankton, quaggas also remove the bottom of the food chain, meaning that important whitefish populations are collapsing. There are now literally quadrillions of the mollusks blanketing most of the bottom of the lower Great Lakes.” www.wpr.org/environment/...
“An invasive species of mussel is revealing the shipwrecks of the US Great Lakes, while also damaging local ecosystems. The quagga mussel came to North America from Europe in the 1980s in ships’ ballast. They filter plankton from the water, making it clearer and rendering wrecks visible.”
“Two psychologists told Tom Chivers recently that the UK had no plan to *measure* the effects of the recent Online Safety Act on children’s online safety.” www.thestudiesshowpod.com/p/paid-only-...
“There’s not enough time to set up ideal experiments, two scientists said, but researchers can still track records of mental health and suicide, or launch national surveys.”
“Do social-media bans benefit young people? These data could offer clues. Australia’s Online Safety Amendment Act provides the chance for researchers to analyse the complex relationship between social-media use and mental health in adolescents, but results should be interpreted with caution.”
“The state-owned Esrange Space Center in Kiruna, Sweden, is among the sites building out orbital rocket programs to allow Europe to advance in the global space race and launch satellites from the continent’s mainland.”
“Inside the Swedish spaceport Europe hopes will compete with the US, China and Russia - For decades, Europe has relied upon the US for its security among the stars. But Trump admin’s policies, plus a commercial market that’s growing exponentially, has prompted Europeans to rethink their approach”
“The Black unemployment rate has risen to 7.2%, the highest level since October 2021, while the overall U.S. unemployment rate remains historically low at 4.2%. Federal job cuts and a rollback of diversity initiatives might further increase Black unemployment.” www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...
bsky.app/profile/torr...
bsky.app/profile/torr...
ProPublica did a good piece 2 months ago: bsky.app/profile/torr...
“In Trump’s Federal Work Force Cuts, Black Women Are Among the Hardest Hit - Trump has cut hundreds of thousands of jobs from the federal work force, disproportionately affecting Black employees.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/u...
“Israel’s military chief reportedly warned leaders Sunday that plans for an expanded offensive in Gaza City would portend a full occupation of the Strip: “You are heading to a military government,” he said, pushing instead for a hostage-and-ceasefire deal, which Netanyahu has rejected.
UPDATE: “A Chinese-owned mining company has been accused of covering up the extent of a disastrous toxic spill in Zambia that polluted a major river that millions rely on with cyanide and arsenic.” apnews.com/article/chin...
Background: bsky.app/profile/torr...
"Chimpanzees are running around with grass in their ears and butts at the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage in Zambia. This is the second time a bizarre fad-like behavior has gripped the sanctuary's chimps, but wearing the grass accessories in their butts is a new twist."
"Most of what we “remember” is not stored as a verbatim transcript but as a reconstruction based on fragments, and most of those fragments are difficult to retrieve without the right context."
"More and more, songs are popping off, but the artists behind them are getting little credit. As Dalla Riva — whose new book, Unchartered Territory, is out soon — puts it, “Many of the ways we discover music today decontextualize the music from the people performing it.”
"Still today, the state helps subsidize vacations for low-income families, and big businesses often offer holiday discount vouchers to their employees."
"Here, vacations were so important that the government subsidized holiday camps where factory workers could get their fill of French culture, attending classical music performances and art shows, said Bertrand Réau, author of the book “The French and Vacations.”
bsky.app/profile/torr...
Yup, and then it stopped :) bsky.app/profile/torr...
Yup: bsky.app/profile/torr...
“sustainable income may be tricky: Tuvalu saw a boom in .tv registrations in the 1990s, but its finance minister said its original deal with a domain provider was “peanuts.”
bsky.app/profile/torr...
bsky.app/profile/torr...
“Anguilla: The tiny Caribbean island received a reported $700,000 from one US tech boss for the domain you dot ai this year, a significant windfall for a territory of just 16,000 people.” www.bbc.com/news/article...
“the Philharmonic’s director said that the heart of Paris is inert, but Greater Paris has “space, diversity, innovation and air.”
“Art galleries have opened up along the Ourcq, a 200-year-old canal in a formerly unloved neighborhood; the Paris Philharmonic concert halls have opened by the Périphérique in the city’s northeastern edge.”
“Nation’s largest RN union: Time for HHS Secretary RFK Jr. to go.” www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/nation...
bsky.app/profile/torr...
bsky.app/profile/torr...
“We Ran the CDC: RFK Jr. Is Endangering Every American’s Health.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/01/o...
“Bernie Sanders: RFK Jr Must Resign.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/o...
“Paris is ringed by a 21-mile highway, the Périphérique, which separates the city from its suburbs. Those outer regions, home to many immigrants, have a — somewhat overstated — bad reputation, but there has been a cultural shift.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/w...
“In the wake of Arab outrage and widespread charges that any forced removal would be a violation of international law, both Trump and Netanyahu more recently have stressed that any postwar relocation of Gazans would be voluntary and, if the Palestinians chose, temporary.”
“rural Afghanistan’s homes are often made from mud and stone, and are easily damaged: Several villages were completely destroyed, officials said.”
“Afghanistan is already facing a major drought, and the UN told Sky News that the Taliban made it extremely difficult to mobilise resources, creating a “perfect storm” of devastation. A 2023 earthquake of comparable size killed more than 1,400 people, according to WHO” news.sky.com/story/nine-p...
“After heated debate, the town approved both proclamations, then decided to avoid controversial issues in the future.” Oh.
“An Iowa town’s routine Pride proclamation ignited a culture war, with a pastor demanding equal recognition for traditional marriage. The town’s debate reflects a national backlash against diversity efforts, amid shifting opinions on same-sex marriage.” www.wsj.com/us-news/push...
Judge orders halt of deportation of hundreds of Guatemalan children - Children in particular, hundreds of thousands of whom have crossed the border in the last decade, are supposed to be subject to special protections. Some of the 600 children were already in planes ready for departure.
“As PBS Stations Confront Cuts, American History Takes a Hit - The documentary series “American Experience” begins an abbreviated schedule this week. A victim of the federal funding take-back, it has suspended production and laid off its staff.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/a...
“His position in the public imagination, and his description of his own persona, is like that of a romance-novel cover model: a smoldering, intuitively empathetic stud who is only somewhat concerned with the plot unfolding around him.”
“He does not feel the need to be verbose; in a cover story for Esquire, he confessed that he’s “not ‘very smart,’” using air quotes, to explain his lack of articulateness in acting.”
“Jason Momoa, in promoting “Chief of War,” his new anticolonial period piece on the unification of Hawaii, recently identified as a “sensitive alpha male,” wearing a pink scrunchie as if it were a coded sign of that sensitivity.”
“In pop culture, beloved male celebrities are increasingly of this mold. Many present “good politics,” with a soft exterior that seems to match them.”
“Calls have proliferated for a left-wing parallel to Joe Rogan, or the political equivalent of those advice-giving bodybuilders in the memes — someone able to speak to increasingly “red-pilled” men on their own terms and coax them toward what Democrats would consider more pro-social beliefs.”
“This model of masculinity has also gained political salience. Democrats, who hemorrhaged roughly 6 percent of their male voters from 2020 to 2024, are having trouble connecting with young men in particular.”
“On one side, allegedly, you have the “average” liberal male: a feckless try-hard, overly intellectual, self-centered and neurotic. On the other side, you have a figure so unbothered by such things that he seems like a human version of Ferdinand the Bull.”
“memes about the “Chad” and his miserably pedantic male counterparts (Virgin vs. Chad, Soyjak vs. Chad) reveal precisely what the new dream man is meant to correct.”
“In the “Buff Guys Typing on Laptops” meme, bodybuilders are pictured not as roid-raging brawlers but as eager providers of good-natured, if clumsy, life advice.” knowyourmeme.com/memes/buff-g...
“If he seems unfazed by the byzantine requirements of modern masculinity, it is largely because he doesn’t know or care that they exist. The desire for this figure is most explicit on social media, where he is a recurrent element in jokes, memes and daydreams.”
“Now there is a clear craving for the fantasy man who seems sweetly naïve, simple, almost oafish — concerned mostly, by the looks of it, with working out and the pleasure of a protein shake.”
“there has been a return of this type: the hunk with a heart of gold. For years, he was left in the dustbin of retrograde male figures, sidelined in favor of something more sophisticated: the self-aware outsider, the flustered nerd, the romantic misfit.” www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/m...
bsky.app/profile/torr...
bsky.app/profile/torr...
“Finland air force adopted swastika emblem in 1918 after country gained its independence after a century of Imperial Russian rule. Finnish air force stressed that its use of symbol had no connection to Nazi Germany, although Finland entered into a reluctant alliance w/ the Third Reich during WWII”
“Xi has tried to recast China’s role in the war to burnish the Communist Party’s image and buttress its claims over Taiwan and the South China Sea, scholars have said. Xi in his speech on Monday called on countries to “promote a correct understanding of World War II history.”
“the biggest highlight is a military parade in Beijing on Wednesday aimed at commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, to be attended by Putin and Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator.”
“Later, Modi was even more effusive at the meeting, telling Putin that “1.4 billion Indians are waiting with excitement” to welcome him in New Delhi in December.”
“This time, Modi even splashed the visuals on his social media accounts shortly after the meeting opened, showing how far, and how suddenly, that juggling act has been upended.”
“But Trump’s barrage of tariffs on India, now at 50 percent after penalizing India for buying Russian oil, has left little incentive for India to do so.”
“In the past, India’s risk-averse bureaucracy would have taken pains to avoid such overt displays of warmth with China and Russia at sensitive junctures — the secret to expanding ties with Washington while keeping a seat at forums led by the other major powers.”
“The three-way hand-holding between Modi, Putin and Xi was nothing short of the smiling manifestation of a troika that Moscow had recently said it hoped to revive.”
“Modi, for his part, spoke of “promoting multilateralism and an inclusive world order” — in other words, a system in which countries like India had a greater say in global affairs.”
“He also praised a recent summit he had with Trump in Alaska to discuss the conflict and said that he had already briefed Xi about those talks in detail, comments seeming to signal China’s central role in Russia’s diplomatic calculus.”
“Putin delivered a speech that repeated his claims about the West being at fault for his country’s war in Ukraine.”
Xi, in his opening speech at Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a Eurasian security grouping, took not-so-subtle jabs at the US, urging members of the group to oppose a “Cold War mentality, bloc confrontation and bullying.” He said the organization must “forge ahead” amid “global upheaval.”
“China wants to seize on the unpopularity of America’s chaotic trade policies to drive a wedge between Washington and the rest of the world, arguing that it can serve as a more stable global leader.”
“That imagery in the city of Tianjin, where more than 20 leaders from mostly Central Asia and South Asia gathered, showed how the geopolitical disruption caused by Trump has given China and Russia a platform to rally partners such as Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus and Pakistan.”
“Modi sought to show that India has other important friends — including China, regardless of unresolved border dispute — if Trump admin chooses to continue alienating New Delhi w/ tariffs.”
“The bonhomie between Xi & Putin was meant to convey a close bond between them as leaders of an alternative world order challenging the US.”
“The Trumps’ New Crypto Money Maker: Deals With Themselves - This sort of circular transaction—with the same party as buyer and seller, dealing in products they themselves created—is more common in the crypto world than in traditional finance.” www.wsj.com/finance/curr...
“It was a scene in China almost certainly intended for an audience on the other side of the world: The leaders of China, Russia & India, the 3 largest powers not aligned with the West, smiling and laughing like good friends as they greeted each other at a summit on Mon” [All 3 a part of BRICS.]
bsky.app/profile/torr...
"Just as that Greatest Generation passes, we as a society and country seem to be forgetting, again, that democracy, freedom, institutions, global friendships, and security alliances are not self-perpetuating; that fascism is not the answer to economic hardship, uncertainty, and dislocation at home;"
"How a Ritzy LA Enclave Learned a Bitter Lesson About the Limits of Its Wealth - Calabasas residents thought it would be easy to keep wildfire ash from being trucked to their local landfill. They were wrong." www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/m...
“Lyons, the acting ICE director, said officers are allowed to decide whether to wear masks covering their faces, because more ICE officers have been assaulted or doxxed since Trump took office.”
A NY Times opinion piece a week before the 2024 election: TRUMP SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS ABANDON ALLIES PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS BELIEVE HIM. Welp!…
A NY Times opinion piece a week before the 2024 election: TRUMP SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS ABANDON ALLIES PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS BELIEVE HIM. Welp!…
Dems can’t win statewide anywhere without Religious Talk, sadly.
bsky.app/profile/nber...
bsky.app/profile/nber...
Talarico is pretty clearly running for senate right now. (I guess it's possible he'll change his mind before announcing, but probably not.)
We need to normalize guys being interested in more than 2 or 3 things.
bsky.app/profile/cram...
