Last November, a beautiful Cape Lily popped up from nowhere and gave a lovely bright spot in amongst a long past azalea!

You can’t be bored with a puppy. They require more attention than a babe! Also, how can anyone be bored with 2 stack of unread books, 4 ft high, or a library nearby?

In his press conference today, Pete Hegseth "used the deaths of U.S. military personnel to air his own grievances with the press," @radiofreetom.bsky.social argues in The Atlantic Daily:

“It’s dystopian. It’s like Black Mirror stuff.” This is Mobile Fortify, an app used by DHS that allows officers to photograph a person’s face and immediately query databases for matches against passport records, visa files, and border entry photos. Our latest with @france24.com:

Last November, a beautiful Cape Lily popped up from nowhere and gave a lovely bright spot in amongst a long past azalea!

"Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph." — Haile Selassie 🌱📷

Rhododendron 'Birat Red' is a somewhat mysterious vireya collected more than 50 years ago in a remote region of Papua New Guinea by an Anglican missionary with a botany degree from Cambridge. No one seems to know if it is a natural hybrid or undescribed species. 🌱 🌴

Read this: On boredom. A report on causes of violent extremism [said] *“it is difficult to overestimate [how] boredom…enhances youth vulnerability to extremist ideas...” In a 2014 study…participants left alone in a room for 15 minutes grew so bored…they willingly gave themselves electric shocks*

Lovely naturalistic relief of a Hoopoe and Ibis, carved by an Egyptian artisan some 4,500 years ago! Limestone wall relief from the 5th Dynasty mortuary temple of Userkaf at Saqqara. Egyptian Museum, Cairo 📷 by me #ReliefWednesday #Archaeology

Literally *everything* they touch, from DOGE, to ICE, to Epstein files, to military adventurism, things fly off the rails in mere minutes. We are being governed by a reckless, belligerent lot. 😵‍💫

Justice for Cricket

ha ha ha I missed this.... @stevesawyer12.bsky.social @jakichantler.bsky.social @ridgecook.bsky.social @davidhemond.bsky.social @11tulips.bsky.social @sailormichael.bsky.social @docjanicel.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz_u...

Yes. Good example. The language as well as the intelligent discussion… both are superb.

Yes! I feel that always while listening to Pete Buttigieg.

Doesn’t it give you a thrill when some unexpected person is being interviewed, or giving a speech (the Oscars or whatever), speaks in delicious, delightful, deperfect English? I hear Hillary Clinton’s statements to Congress were impressive - I must find a video.

It does. Anyone for whom the English language isn’t his/her first language gets a pass from me. English isn’t easy. But anyone who’s a native speaker, who’s learned and spoken it for decades: I don’t get it. Harry did love language. I miss him.

Dems having made it abundantly clear these past several years that they just don't want any of what those to their Left have to offer, how much longer until any looking to run against The 'Democratic' Party also (or instead, whatever) give Republican voters their shot at working towards REAL change?

If Dems fail to listen to their base again that's it. There's only two choices in America and I'm sick and tired of choosing between total annihilation or the same old disunity and compromise to please the right wing conservatives who are called moderate Dems in this dystopian reality.

The Republican Party is too far-right extremist for Dan Crenshaw. Democratic incumbents are losing to more progressive challengers by wide margins. Something to keep in mind next time Democratic consultants dust off their old "tack right to win the center" powerpoints yet again.

"In the tragic beauty of Swan Lake, we find hope and despair intertwined." Conductor Hunjoung Lim and Korean Symphony Orchestra perform Dances of the Swans, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake Suite, composed in 1882. 🙏🏼🌍🕊️

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will leave the Pentagon as U.S. soldiers fight in the Middle East to make an appearance at the traditional starting point for presidential campaigns.

This is Tom [checks notes] Tillis!?! 🏆

The so called War Secretary I hear?

I miss Hitchens, who made me both afraid to think and afraid not to.

This stupid, slicked-back poseur. We only can guess how emasculated he must be in real life to activate these mortifying fantasies. “Department of War” “Fuck Around & Find Out” “Playing for Keeps” “Unleash our power” A little boy employed by a brute to whom he must give his lunch money every day.

Hegseth: "Death & destruction from the sky all day. We're playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by POTUS & yours truly. Our rules of engagement are bold, precise designed to unleash American power, not shackle it ... we are punching them while they are down"

Sure we bombing children. But it’s a Holy War!

War? What’s it good for? Absolutely nothing. (Edwin Starr). But whatcha gonna do when you’re the Secretary of War? Find a pretext cuz that’s what you do.

"You told a lie about them. Do you regret that?" -- Raskin grills Noem about her comments that Good and Pretti were domestic terrorists

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Ooo, Without Mercy! says Call of Duty fan & TV masterweenie

Trump gubmint to parents of dead soldiers: “Them’s the breaks”

To be more specific, Fetterman and Platner’s white working class coded masculinity feels like a sensibility that’s especially alluring to someone who feels like they’re not living up to what a “successful” man in their family should be. So they become the authentic salt of the earth guy.

Statements from both candidates.

BOTH Democratic U.S. Senate candidates should be furious about how this is being handled in Texas. It benefits one candidate today. But the same chaos that helped them in the primary can absolutely burn them the general.

@11tulips.bsky.social @bostondukeman.bsky.social

Everyone ready for the Rapture? Pete Hegseth is!

I’d be so embarrassed to be a Republican congressman now. Gutless, spineless, limp, fearful, silent in their tacit support of the Greased Ogre. How can they face their kids? Themselves?

1. Because roughly 33% of Americans are getting exactly what they voted for; and 2. The rest of the GOP is too craven to stand up to him. I'll be very interested in seeing what Congress does. Even the Wall Street Journal seems to think the grounds for the war are flimsy pretexts.

GIFT ARTICLE: “You don’t go bankrupt as often as Trump has gone bankrupt if you’re good at assessing risk.” www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

The USA/Israel will fail in Iran. Just as they failed in Iraq. Afghanistan.... Vietnam.... This is all explained in the Epstein files. Failure is the plan. Humanity must learn the model -- to reclaim the tools of civilization. youtu.be/sFwRj8Fv8MU

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And at some point the arms will be sold off and used against Americans. I seem to recall this plot playing out more than once, or so it seems.

Another Republican fantasy to think those arms will be used only against Iran. Turkey and Syria will also be a target, triggering brutal reprisals.

“Does your leader view the lives of armed services personnel as disposable…saying things like “that’s the way it is” when they are killed? Is your leader…consolidating control over the nation’s prominent media outlets? ….If yes, it may be time for a massive nonviolent resistance movement.”

Brilliant!

People who travel & live overseas (from someone who lived overseas) - it's smart to contact the State Department before you go & let them know you will be in X country...register w/ them, so that if anything happens, they will know where you are so they can help. travel.state.gov/en/internati...

The Trump gubmint is “gonna release on these people”— They do love this seventh-grade lingo. Sounds like the US is the global version of ICE thugs

this too how much did they give Trump? @stevesawyer12.bsky.social @11tulips.bsky.social @jakichantler.bsky.social