Michael Pollak
@mdpollak.bsky.social
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I love big books and I cannot lie
Children's menu at the Gainesville airport
2 days ago
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Amusingly, we were both born in 1958 and we both just retired. And no, I'm not changing my avatar. Posting is what retirement is for! (They got the math wrong, though. We're both 67. Months matter.)
add a skeleton here at some point
6 days ago
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Michael Pollak
Ed Morrish
6 months ago
[me, a journalist who spends all day every day on a social media app where the discovery algorithm is personally controlled by its owner, captain birdseye] you know, a lot of people are talking about fish fingers, we should probably cover that
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Michael Pollak
+972 Magazine
12 days ago
Has Israel crossed the annexation threshold in the West Bank? Six ‘game-changing’ recent cabinet decisions may push the occupation past a tipping point toward permanent Israeli rule, says Yesh Din director Ziv Stahl. Interview with Yesh Din director Ziv Stahl
www.972mag.com/israel-west-...
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Has Israel crossed the annexation threshold in the West Bank?
Six ‘game-changing’ recent cabinet decisions may push the occupation past a tipping point toward permanent Israeli rule, says Yesh Din director Ziv Stahl.
https://www.972mag.com/israel-west-bank-annexation-threshold/
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Melinda Cooper's essay is a pleasure, if you're an "Engels on patriarchy 2.0" kind of person
www.equator.org/articles/eps...
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Epstein Family Values • EQUATOR
The billionaire patriarchs of the American far-right want to rule an economy of masters and servants
https://www.equator.org/articles/epstein-family-values
8 days ago
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If, like me, you loved this book, you'll love this article. It's not a repetition of what you've read, it's a complement, a wider historical context, with a couple of stunning claims with citations.
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9 days ago
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Theology is rarely so charming & clear. Remember the Arian heresy? Milton believed it. Turns out it's common sense & that's why they had to kill anyone who said it in public. It was the establishment view that was insane all those millennia. Nothing like today.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
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Tobias Gregory · A Terrier and a Camel: Milton’s Theology
Milton was an anticlerical, anti-hierarchical, individualistic godly Protestant. He belonged to no parish, sect or...
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n03/tobias-gregory/a-terrier-and-a-camel
9 days ago
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reposted by
Michael Pollak
JW Mason
10 days ago
No surprise, I agree with what
@dsquareddigest.bsky.social
says here. One addition to the first point: if LLMs do create mass white-collar unemployment (which I think is unlikely but not impossible) that will shift the macroeconomic policy tradeoffs toward stimulus.
open.substack.com/pub/backofmi...
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Michael Pollak
Dan Davies
11 days ago
This is just really embarrassing for these guys. Your intellectual hero is an amphetamine casualty from the Britpop years. It would be less ridiculous to be queuing up for a lecture by Ginger Spice.
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Michael Pollak
zatapatique
11 days ago
to make a very dumb, first principles, analogy: Hollywood productions did not become lighter in workforce when they suddenly got the tools to make stuff in an easier way than hydraulic mechanical sharks
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Michael Pollak
Emma Monk
9 days ago
This clip is all over the other place and has made its way onto GB News and Talk TV so I’ll do a bit of an explainer here too! The clip doing the rounds is of a fantastic police officer telling a group of Muslim men that a Christian preacher nearby is entitled to freedom of expression. 🧵 1/19
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9 days ago
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Steven Simon on the Un-American spell cast by the word "homeland"
www.ft.com/content/f073...
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How ‘homeland’ put America on the path to illiberalism
A phrase from the 1990s altered America’s sense of itself — and its political trajectory
https://www.ft.com/content/f07389e6-cbbd-4f2b-b3bc-ece55201dc27
10 days ago
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reposted by
Michael Pollak
Vali Nasr
11 days ago
My piece in Financial Times on why Iran may pursue diplomacy but may take its chances with war
as.ft.com/r/ef11ca76-6...
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Why Iran is betting on war
[FREE TO READ] Tehran thinks a drawn-out conflict could eventually yield a better deal than what Trump is offering today
https://as.ft.com/r/ef11ca76-6650-46a6-a8c2-202149d349b3
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[email protected]
on the sharp fall of premillennialism among young Evangelicals & the consequent fall in support for Israel
www.notus.org/perspectives...
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The Coming Conservative Turn Against Israel Goes Much Deeper Than You Realize
It’s not just about politics. It’s also about theology. And it’s going to have a massive impact on Zionism, U.S. foreign policy — and even the place of Jews in America.
https://www.notus.org/perspectives/the-coming-conservative-turn-against-israel-goes-much-deeper-than-you-realize
11 days ago
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reposted by
Michael Pollak
JW Mason
12 days ago
Another question: when were the two biggest accelerations in productivity growth in postwar history? The answer is, the mid-1960s and the late 1990s. In both cases, productivity growth rose by about 2.5 points for a number of years. And then ask: what were labor markets like in those periods?
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Jude Wanga in the LRB blog
www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/fe...
12 days ago
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Don't be misled by the headline, which is the right one to sell it to EU decision-makers. But it's the opposite argument of what usually follows such a sentence. By Dalia Marin
www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/c...
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Europe Is Squandering Its Leverage Over China
Dalia Marin argues that Chinese firms be required to enter joint ventures with local companies to access the EU market.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-access-to-eu-market-is-undermining-german-competitiveness-by-dalia-marin-2026-02
12 days ago
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By Aziz Huq &
@vanessawilliamson.bsky.social
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/17/o...
13 days ago
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reposted by
Michael Pollak
JW Mason
15 days ago
If Team Abundance is looking for rules and regulations that get in the way of all kinds of useful and life-improving work, they could start with patents and copyrights.
add a skeleton here at some point
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Michael Pollak
JW Mason
14 days ago
One thing you will learn, if you read a good history of American settlement like Greg Grandin's *América, America*, is how much the English wars of extermination against Native Americans developed directly out of, and were self-consciously modeled on, their near-contemporary wars on the Irish.
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[email protected]
on why what looks like the next El Niño is such a horrifying thought
billmckibben.substack.com/p/an-el-nino...
14 days ago
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Max Blumenthal interviews Christian Parenti on his dad Michael. Perhaps the best tribute to a father from a son I've ever heard. A stout defense, a fond reminiscence, and a revelation of origins and parallels.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynp4...
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The life and work of Michael Parenti: a tribute with his son, Christian
YouTube video by The Grayzone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynp4_Y7JetU
15 days ago
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7 Hard Lessons Democrats Must Learn in 2026 by Austin Ahlman and Ben Winsor
libertyandpower.substack.com/p/7-hard-les...
15 days ago
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Sharp piece, sharp formula from
@adamserwer.bsky.social
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
16 days ago
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Mouin Rabbani's short, sharp & complete indictment of all involved in the latest attempt to defame Francesca Albanese, the conscience of the world.
mouinrabbani.substack.com/p/defaming-f...
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Defaming Francesca Albanese
Those who have made it their profession to defame her and all for which she advocates, defame only themselves
https://mouinrabbani.substack.com/p/defaming-francesca-albanese
16 days ago
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Short, sharp case by
@jamellebouie.net
that “concentration camp” is the technical term & "detention camp" is the propaganda. The camps are criminal means to a criminal purpose. Denotation is unmasking, going along is abetting.
www.nytimes.com/2026/02/14/o...
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Opinion | This Is Much Worse Than Mere Detention
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/14/opinion/columnists/trump-immigrant-detention.html
16 days ago
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reposted by
Michael Pollak
Henry Farrell
18 days ago
The Median Voter Theorem is a Clarity Trap
www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-median...
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The Median Voter Theorem is a Clarity Trap
What the Democratic party needs; what it demands, is bold, persistent experimentation
https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/the-median-voter-theorem-is-a-clarity
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Michael Pollak
Chris Terry-Enescu
18 days ago
It helps to look convincingly happy about the things you're doing. It helps sell the sense that you're doing something because it aligns with your values. This government's default mode is to do something while handwringing that they had no other choice because someone else made them do it.
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My friend Michael Kinnucan said he's going to get this tattooed. It's the last 2 paragraphs of this great piece by
@dsquareddigest.bsky.social
backofmind.substack.com/p/why-this-w...
17 days ago
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Brilliant article by
@jwmason.bsky.social
on the economics and politics of housing we can afford
www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/aft...
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https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/after-the-rent-freeze/
18 days ago
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reposted by
Michael Pollak
Matt Novak
18 days ago
The details of the Kristi Noem blanket incident are just fucking perfect
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Michael Pollak
Dan Davies
19 days ago
You can't enforce standards by stricter rules unless you can enforce the rules, and if you can do that, the enforcement is doing all the work. It's like trying to inspect defects out rather than designing quality in for a manufacturing process.
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reposted by
Michael Pollak
Mikhail Gorbaechev
19 days ago
damn you're telling me that sin taxes work to reduce consumption of socially harmful goods while keeping them legal and thus avoiding the problems of criminalization?
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Great thread
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19 days ago
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Great essay by Evgenia Kovda on Limonov's essays & a new-old theory of why the Soviet Union got destroyed: the elite really believed US propaganda
www.nefariousrussians.com/p/the-disapp...
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The Disappearance of Barbarians
How the Soviet Union psyoped itself out of existence.
https://www.nefariousrussians.com/p/the-disappearance-of-barbarians
19 days ago
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This is awesome in 3 ways: 1) Explaining why the digital euro 2) Explaining why socialism (last sect + Washington Post Problem) 3) Introducing me to the hilariously useful term "bionic duckweed"
add a skeleton here at some point
19 days ago
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reposted by
Michael Pollak
Barton L Smith
21 days ago
I teach heat transfer, and I can confirm that the vacuum of space is an excellent insulator. Cooling electronics in space is hard.
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reposted by
Michael Pollak
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
21 days ago
ICE has now spent over half a BILLION dollars just on purchasing warehouses around the country to convert into detention camps. If these mega-camps are utilized to the full capacity ICE intends, they'll be the largest prisons in the country, with little real oversight.
www.ajc.com/politics/202...
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ICE to begin detaining immigrants inside Social Circle warehouse in April
Homeland Security plans to build warehouse detention facilities in other cities being met with opposition.
https://www.ajc.com/politics/2026/02/ice-to-begin-detaining-immigrants-inside-social-circle-warehouse-in-april/
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Michael Pollak
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
21 days ago
This likely happened because a federal judge found that the termination of her student status was illegal and ordered it reinstated.
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Michael Pollak
Mrs. Betty Bowers
21 days ago
These triplets are, apparently, fighting each other for ratings.
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Great reporting & even-toned writing that wakes up the horror we should all have at cluster bomb shells. Worth reading to the end.
theintercept.com/2026/02/06/p...
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Pentagon Makes Largest Known Arms Purchase From Israel — For Banned Cluster Weapons
The contract for the controversial weapons known for high civilian death tolls is the largest of its kind in available government records.
https://theintercept.com/2026/02/06/pentagon-israel-cluster-munitions-weapons-sale
22 days ago
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Michael Pollak
Paul Rosenberg
23 days ago
"We, as Western nations, must choose between becoming closed and impoverished societies or open and prosperous ones. Growth or retreat: Those are the two options before us. And by growth, I’m not talking only about material gain, but also our spiritual development." Pedro Sánchez, Spanish PM
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Great reporting on AIPAC's various methods of buying elections secretly (well, you find out after the election but they deny during) by
@ryangrim.bsky.social
&
@ddayen.bsky.social
prospect.org/2026/02/06/a...
24 days ago
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It’s slightly comical to say this piece by
@attackerman.bsky.social
really clears things up but it’s true & you should read
www.forever-wars.com/ron-wyden-on...
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Ron Wyden Only Talks Like This When The Spies Do Something *Real* Bad
No, I don't know what they did. But I have a lot of experience with the senator
https://www.forever-wars.com/ron-wyden-only-talks-like-this-when-the-spies-do-something-real-bad/
25 days ago
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Forget rational actors or manipulated masses. Basal human nature is a finely-tuned mix of noble and petty best represented by my sick wife saying “Don't worry about me, I’m glad *you’re* having fun.”
25 days ago
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reposted by
Michael Pollak
Dan Neidle
27 days ago
Peter Mandelson is telling the truth on one thing: the idea he was bought for a $4k “bursary” or a $75k gift is ridiculous The real incentive was a post-government payday - one so big he *rejected* a $3–5m-a-year offer And Epstein enabled that payday Here’s the evidence. 🧵
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reposted by
Michael Pollak
Dan Davies
27 days ago
This is preying on my mind a bit. Jeffrey Epstein was not primarily a British scandal! So far we've removed a Prince from the Royal family, fired our US ambassador who was one of the most important political figures of the last few decades and banned the CEO of Barclays from the financial industry..
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Michael Pollak
Max Berger
26 days ago
Democracy dies in oligarchy.
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Michael Pollak
Chris Gelardi
26 days ago
New York's youth prisons are a disaster. Kids locked in solitary for days at a time. Staff forced to work 24-plus-hour shifts. Crisis after crisis. "I'm a human rights violator," one whistleblower told me. They recounted the nightmare at one facility:
nysfocus.com/2026/02/04/o...
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Staff at Youth Prison Recount Lockdowns, Turmoil, 24-Hour Shifts
A yearslong staffing crisis at state-run facilities has taken its toll on incarcerated kids and the workers who watch over them.
https://nysfocus.com/2026/02/04/ocfs-industry-youth-solitary-staff-prison
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