My favorite: the claim that a canoe Columbus encountered in the Bay Islands off Honduras was from Yucatán. Partly based on a word transcribed as “Maia” in an English account based on the expanded version of the encounter in the much later account by Columbus’ son; the original likely read “Paia”.

evergreen (via the brilliant @smoothdunk2.bsky.social)

[frantically dialing the Dad Joke Hall of Fame]

David Horsey Seattle Times

Tbf I am usually suffering from an excess of Gut (IBS)

Scientists named this species of hairy ghost pipefish after beloved Sesame Street resident Mr. Snuffleupagus and we're obsessed.

The argument that AI gets to steal everything you’ve written, strip it for writing techniques, and now AI is the only one who gets to use that technique is not as anti-AI as you think.

crucial context: Peter Mandelson was sacked from the first New Labour government for having a £373,000 *loan* (not a gift) from a Labour colleague (Geoffrey Robinson) to buy a house

164 years ago, on the 13th of May 1862, Robert Smalls escaped slavery by capturing the steamboat 'Planter' and steering it through Confederate lines. The US Navy commissioned it as the USS Planter and appointed Smalls as captain, making him the first black man to command a US ship. #otd #history 🗃️

"The oligarchs want a permanent ruling class. The extremists want a permanent underclass to grind a boot into. The deal between them is straightforward enough: the oligarchs get captured courts and permanent tax cuts, the extremists get their hierarchy of human worth written back into the law"

The academic equivalent of always reblog Tom Holland lip syncing to Umbrella is always reblog The Snake Fight Portion of Your Thesis Defense

Ending Reconstruction before hanging every Confederate was a mistake

*cough laughs*

me, buying a book written by someone who I've never met but we sometimes like each other's posts on Bluesky: my friend wrote this

Child protective services ripped a 14-year-old from her home to stop her from leaving the state for an abortion. They also threatened her mother with murder charges and the removal of her other child if they crossed state lines for care. So please don't tell me Republicans aren't banning travel.

Dangerous kitten, not good for pettings, but lovely to look at respectfully.

america's reactionaries would love nothing more to nullify the reconstruction amendments and render them a dead letter of the constitution. this was as true in 1873 as it is today.

Again, the point at which Democrats needed to burn it all down & stop the authoritarianism in its tracks was December 12, 2000, when the Wizards In Robes decided that people's votes didn't need to be counted. Everything since has been the inevitable outcome of that levee breaking.

Eating Prime Ministers is a Dutch, and only Dutch, tradition, thank you very much. My culture isn’t your costume!

You need to read this horrifying and astonishing account of the genocidal murders in El Fasher in October 2025. These killings could have been stopped: unfortunately, the world did nothing and actively looked away.

The redistricting wars feel like the whole of modern American politics: Trump picks a stupid fight, wages it idiotically, Democrats fight back and win, then some other American institution suddenly chimes in to hand the win to Trump anyway for being a very special boy and everyone gets mad at Dems

The Purcell Principle means it always too late for courts to fix something racist and never too late for states to do something racist

All true with respect to that aspect of "fine"; the problem with the VA stuff is not the midterms The core issue is that the Republicans on the court inarguably set aside the will of the people as decided in a fair election, an affront to democracy that must be answered harshly lest it repeat 1/2

The problem with minarchist libertarianism is it relies on everyone just being rational and nice and honest and helpful and not dumping sewage in rivers, and the problem with that is...

here’s the thing about taxes like this, coming from someone who isn’t remotely close to “own a second home in NYC” but does very well compared to most people: they don’t matter you get a big tax bill, you go “ouch! that sucks!” you pay the tax bill your life changes in no material way, the end

All elected positions should be full time with generous benefits, *and* subject to the rigorous standard of ethics expected of most other pre-DOGE civil service jobs.

The death of the mid-list as a way for talented dedicated people to make a reliable middle class income … across all fields … is a calamity (and yes one attributable directly to our extractive economic systems).

You have these zombie companies staggering about, emitting a powerful stench of rot, they're unable to solve basic problems or do basic things anymore. They're insensitive to things that hurt living companies

WHAT

This 1952 memo from the Pentagon UFO files is superb There is no point preparing for aliens ‘because no one of consequence is going to take this rubbish seriously unless it happens. At that point, our policy will be determined in the traditional manner of grand panic.’ 🤣 www.war.gov/medialink/uf...

I'll just note that critical race theory predicts quite a lot about the current racial retrenchment and for being *correct* it was pilloried in the press and by some academics.

You’ll be hard pressed to find a democratizing movement in the US that *didn’t* play constitutional hardball & *didn’t* break unjust laws. That’s literally what democratization is, though it makes some people uncomfortable. If you want a democracy, you have to break the undemocratic system.

If there's one thing I care about more than trans rights its that people at the lowest rungs of society have gifts and talents that equal that at the highest, and their gifts are being squandered, and no one really internalizes that or cares.

BEAR PSA i want to be very clear that when i talk here and on twitter about how i use black bear behaviour, Ursus americanus behaviour, to keep myself and the black bear safe, i am speaking only of black bears and black bear subspecies. grizzlies are not the same. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

This is EXACTLY the sort of thing FDR did in 1973 in order to "persuade" SCOTUS that they should allow for state minimum wage laws.

If the valid standing precedent is the legislature can call a convention and the convention can itself directly adopt a new constitution without ratification by referendum, regardless of existing procedure, either that's still true or else Virginia's constitution as it exists is wholly illegitimate.

Oh my. This is spectacular. sinceyouarrived.world/taken

We truly did not hang enough confederates

This dog was a three term mayor of Whoville.

Related: welcometobusinesstown.tumblr.com

What is especially galling is that this saved zero dollars, since the cruise ships pay for the inspections. And now their industry is less trusted because of perceived health risks. Amazing lose-lose policymaking.

If you thought elaborately faking being good at videogames to impress a bunch of manchildren was embarrassing, consider elaborately faking that your mother loves you.