Every musician forced by contract to play there should end their show with an audience-participation performance of Edelweiss.

I went into the Six Senses hotel in palazzo Salviati Mellini and asked if they would let me see the #palaeochristian #baptistery of #SanMarcello, over which the palazzo is built, and they showed me this marvel, surely the best-preserved example from #LateAntiquity in #Rome.

#MosaicMonday takes us into the chapel of S. Giovanni Evangelista in the #Lateran #baptistery in #Rome, which preserves intact its ceiling #mosaic from 461-468 CE, a glorious trellis enclosing the Lamb of God within a wreath, and birds with kantharoi - #syncretic #LateAntiquity. #AncientBluesky 🏺

Stock Exchange Palace, Porto, Portugal

Imagine it being easier to just pay the 8 billion dollars and it won't affect you in the slightest. Man what have we done lol

Even the US Library of Congress says it's true! It's "4 colly birds"! "Is it 'Four Calling Birds' or 'Four Colly Birds'? A 'Twelve Days of Christmas' Debate" blogs.loc.gov/catbird/2016...

All of the money that changed hands in the Teapot Dome scandal totaled less than $10 million after adjusting for inflation, and it was considered so corrupt we still teach it in high school government classes a century later.

Quite a few starfish have been washed up on the local beaches. "Beach Trails" Hand embroidery thread painting artwork www.emilytull.co.uk/store/p173/b... #Stunday #embroidery #WildlifeArt

Wordle 1,652 5/6 🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟩⬛⬛⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Every word, from @rufusgifford.bsky.social

Tariffs as a % of GDP are at the highest level in more than 100 years amidst Trump's trade war—even though tariff rates are still lower than in the 1930s, they have a much higher impact because trade volumes are much larger than in the past

Insane NY Post column suggesting that the new First Lady who is sad about leaving her longtime neighbors in a not fancy NYC neighborhood is an ungrateful brown woman

The Post was around 50% as deranged in its de Blasio coverage, but he didn’t come into office with the massive outside force that Mamdani is bringing. Gonna be a test of the paper’s influence; it beats him up every second but he’s got a posse saying “shut the fuck up.”

The bloody ghost of my ancestor Lt. John Bacon, shot dead by a redcoat musket during the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19th, 1775, appeared at the side of my bed last night and said anyone can be American as long as they aren’t English

If you begin Star Trek: Voyager episode Spirit Folk at exactly 11:49:35 on New Year's Eve, Ensign Harry Kim will kiss a cow as the clock strikes midnight. Join in a very dumb annual tradition and start 2026 off on the right hoof.

Yes. The legalistic way would be to say that the assault breaches the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and excuses performance. I mean except in New Jersey.

1970—no fault divorce finally legalized, female suicide rates drop 20% 1974—Equal Credit Opp Act passes, women finally have basic access to finances 1993—Marital rape finally criminalized Call me old school but countering record high suicide, financial imprisonment, & suffocating DV IS Liberation

i also like that they promote repair culture. imo, even when people buy quality things, they are too quick to ditch and replace when things look shabby another video from IG thishouse5000 (pls bluesky let us attach multiple videos to a post)

i love furniture restoration videos because they show how quality is important and you can get some really beautiful, overlooked furniture if you learn certain skills IG savedbydesign.tn

This is the unifying ethos on the right, along with "but fine for me to hate you"

Of all the examples of people dying because somebody inexperienced was in charge, the biggest, most horrifying was Elon Musk and DOGE. No idea what AID did, didn’t care, blew it up and at least 600,000 people died unnecessarily as a consequence. Mass murder out of ignorance and bias. Thanks, Elon.

the very last person who should be prattling on about the dangers of inexperience is the grifting troglodyte who killed millions when he was put in charge of “efficiency”

Journey of a just-checked suitcase with a camera on it. Be sure to be looking at 3:36 min. From that point on is the more interesting half, but the 1st half is very zen.

Since yall like him, a few more shots of this goodest boy.

My wife had to go to the urgent care in Miami (nothing too serious, after all), and she had ID and insurance, but they asked her about her immigration status?! What's up with that, Florida people?

“it is illegal for you not to like me”

One of the most incredible shots I've ever gotten, in Yellowstone. This coyote walked over a ridge in the blowing snow and posed for me, with a small grin on its face, the snowfalkes like stars in the background. The desolation and beauty of life and nature is grounding, and so good for the soul.

Link with no paywall in the replies. Not just "Navy-trained." Brynn Tannehill is a Naval Academy grad, in computer science, with an MS in Operations Research from the Air Force Institute of Technology. And they could have shown her face.

I'm sorry you can not run on an explicitly white agenda and be named putsch and expect me to believe you are real.

The First Amendment means anyone anywhere can say whatever criticism they want about the US legal system and the government has to sit there and take it like the salty little bitches they are.

Powerful people with access to otherwise-unknown, globally impactful information are boosters of prediction markets. That’s because they intend to illegally profit from their knowledge, and probably change US policy in order to better profit from insider trading.

If you want to see a whale off the coast of Oregon, this weekend is a good time to do it. Whale Watch Week this year runs from Dec. 27-31. Gray whales are migrating south, from summer feeding grounds off the coast of Alaska down to the lagoons of Mexico, to give birth. www.klcc.org/environment/...

It's good, but I think it misses the aspect that he's got a lot of people in his administration who *are* authoritarian, and using the cover of Trump to do evil things. Though, to be fair to the author, in February, they'd not yet really dialled it up to 11, even if there were warning signs.

Patrimonialism.

The biggest divide in America today is not between “right” and “left,” or between Republicans and Democrats. It’s between democracy and oligarchy. The old labels — “right” and “left” — prevent most people from noticing they’re getting the shaft. Know the truth.

We need to tax wealth, raise income taxes on the top 10%, tax all transactions, and distribute universal basic income that is indexed to 25% of GDP per capita so that it operates as a productivity growth dividend. We'd surpass Nordic levels of equality if we did this mix.

America's richest 10% now hold 60% of the nation's wealth. The bottom half of America? It holds just 6%. Wealth inequality is eating this country alive.

Hardly a surprise.

We are getting to the point where white collar criminals are thinking, "why take the plea deal my high-priced lawyer negotiated when I can just bribe the President and skip jail altogether?" donmoynihan.substack.com/p/pardon-the...

It is not just the corruption of Trump pardoning someone who was making him richer. It is also a two-tier justice system where the rich can buy freedom. Binance paid the lobbyist $800K for the pardon, and were offering lobbyists success fees of up to $6 million. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

New reporting says Don Jr. directly facilitated the pardon of a crypto whale who had promoted the Trump's family crypto. Jr. brought the pardon lawyer to the White House, and introduced him directly to his Dad. Pardon occurred right after. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/pardon-the...

It is currently comically beyond our capabilities to build a space station that can support more than a handful of highly-trained astronauts for extended periods, at enormous cost. Claiming that untrained college grads will just hop on a rocket for a lucrative career in 2035 is a shameless lie.

Probably the most amazing thing about social media is coming across experts in obscure fields, like this person's knowledge on marble.

Today we remember the loss of 13 workers of the oil platform Sea Gem. The Sea Gem was a North Sea oil platform owned by BP, converted from a barge in 1964 by adding 10 steel legs, raising it 15 meters above the water's surface. (1/4)🧵 #history #maritimehistory

My female Afghan judges and prosecutors had to do this regularly for years, even during the 20-year American occupation of Afghanistan. And then the Taliban took over and killed many as we scrambled to get the rest out of the country. Sigh.

"One judge moved house. Another had to freeze her credit cards after a security breach. Other judges have taken actions to adapt to the changing landscape by upgrading home security systems, changing the route they drive to work." This is fascism. This is what terrorist intimidation looks like.

Update. The ICE supervisor, who is 47, was arrested for domestic violence against his non-citizen partner who he started a relationship when she was 18 and he was 40. www.fox19.com/2025/12/22/i...

Like the huckleberry, I can tolerate shade but fruit better in dappled light

Our government’s priorities are entirely backward. And purposefully so.

That was a great clip with Sinatra. Our country was built by immigrants, not white people who call themselves Christians. If you want to find real Christians, look to our immigrants. They didn't come here to hate, they came because we told them they could and we would welcome them to a better world.