knottahooker: I’d like to live through a week that’s not a whole new verse of “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” 🔗
Quotes
@TonyPannWBAL: Ok. I guess I have to address this. The information on your phone app comes FROM data provided by NOAA for free. NOAA gathers weather data (daily balloon launches) and feeds it into the modeling so your phone can tell you it’s going to rain tomorrow. Saying we don’t need NOAA or the NWS because I can see the weather on my phone, is like saying we don’t need farmers because I can just go to the grocery store. End of rant. You may continue scrolling…
A Fake Expert. A Book Cover. An Amazon Search. That’S It. That’S How We Got Here.
4/9/25
@RetroAgent12: How did we get here? Donald Trump tanked the economy based on a book his son-in-law found on Amazon. He told Jared Kushner to find him an economic advisor—someone who could make him “look tough” and talk tough on China. Jared searched Amazon, saw a book called Death by China, and thought the title was “cool.” So he cold-called the author, Peter Navarro, and gave him a job. Navarro had no real economic credibility—just an obsession with tariffs and a made-up expert named “Ron Vara” whom he cited repeatedly in his books.
TNG Wisdom
4/9/25
Worf: “Thinking about what you can’t control only wastes energy and creates its own enemy.” Picard: “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.” Troi: “Feelings aren’t positive or negative, they simply exist. It’s what we do with those feelings that becomes good or bad.” Lwaxana: “Life’s true gift is the capacity to enjoy enjoyment.” Wesley: “I’m never gonna feel this way about anyone else.
“This is for someone who’s been putting themselves last for too long. You are worth prioritizing. Your beauty is undeniable, your spirit is unmatched, and the way you care for others is a gift, But don’t forget to care for you. You are worth celebrating.”
“You are an irreplaceable gash in the fabric of reality. Your keening static howl is like no other, and if it faded from the abyss, the void that would remain would be unfillable, and the mansions of silence would forever fill with our lament.”
Night Vale: There is no cause for concern. We’re way past that now. If you’re not at least feeling mild terror then you haven’t been paying attention.
vanillecannellemiel: Every protein bar is called something like “double chocolate indulgence caramel cookie dough delight crunch” and tastes like clay and sawdust.
Erik Moeller: “I find Trump as repulsive as most people here, but as a German, one thing I want to push back on is focusing only on one man. Hitler’s rise was possible because he was able to exploit the racial hatred and conspiratorial thinking that already existed. It’s MAGA acolytes that see Trump as an extraordinary figure. He was a reality show grifter with a crumbling business; Hitler was an undisciplined drifter with delusions of grandeur. It’s the soil that matters, not just the rotten harvest.”
@anammostarac: “As a guiding principle, the notion that ‘bees don’t waste their time explaining to flies that honey is better than shit’ has helped me filter out a lot of opinions.”
Bertrand Russell: “First, they fascinate the fools. Then, they muzzle the intelligent.”
Christopher Eccleston: “As a kid, I hated ‘Star Wars’ but I loved ‘Star Trek.’ And I’ve since realized the reason I love ‘Star Trek’ is because it is entirely about character. You have villains and some space but it’s basically a brilliantly written love triangle between Kirk, Spock & Bones - Lt. Uhura being the ‘beard’ from what I could see.”
Not With a Bang, but a Fucking Signal Ping (Erik Veland)
3/27/25
Erik Veland: The Hegseth Signal Scandal is not just a mistake. It’s a sign that the fascist coup is sloppy, dangerous, and fully operational. This wasn’t “oops, wrong text.” It was Project 2025 protocol in action. Here’s why this has intelligence vets raging and democracies trembling: The U.S. government—yes, the one run by Trump’s handpicked fascists—accidentally added a journalist to a group Signal chat where they were actively planning strikes in Yemen.
Rising Sun, Michael Crichton: The American press reports the prevailing opinion. The prevailing opinion is the opinion of the group in power.
“I had a professor in college who used to start solving every problem with the same dialogue.
“Prof: What’s the first step to solving any problem?
“Class: Don’t panic.
“Prof: And why is that?
“Class: Because we know more than we think we do.
“I think about that a lot tbh. It didn’t occur to me until much later that he meant for us to apply that dialogue outside of the classroom to any problem. Because we always know more than we think we do. We are all an amalgam of random information that ends up being relevant with surprising frequency.”
Anthony Bourdain: “There are few things I care about less than coffee. I have two big cups every morning: light and sweet, preferably in a cardboard cup. Any bodega will do. I don’t want to wait for my coffee. I don’t want some man-bun, ‘Mumford and Son’ motherfucker to get it for me. I like good coffee but I don’t want to wait for it, and I don’t want it with the cast of Friends. It’s a beverage; it’s not a lifestyle.”
Yung Pueblo: Five green flags that get overlooked: kind eyes, open heart, good energy, caring actions, honest speech.
D.L. Mayfield: Here's My Pep Talk After Studying Authoritarianism
3/25/25
D.L. Mayfield: Here’s my pep talk after studying authoritarianism: They never truly expect a long-term resistance movement be they think people are a collection of trauma triggers who are easily controlled thru terror.If they can't terrorize you 24/7 in your mind, they have already lost the war.The single best way you can resist fascism is to not let them terrorize you constantly. Protect your mental health to ensure you are not constantly ina terrorized state.
Robi Locksley: “I’m going to tell you why so much of conservative comedy isn’t funny.
“And it has nothing to do with punching down instead of up, or lacking empathy and curiosity. Those are all definite hallmarks of conservative comedy, but they’re not why it’s so unfunny.
“It’s because conservative comedy, for the most part, isn’t created to make anyone laugh. It’s created with the intention of upsetting some stereotypical other. And the idea of that other being upset is what conservatives are laughing at.
“When a conservative tells an anti-trans joke, they’re doing it with the intention of upsetting the version of trans people that lives in their head.
“And when conservatives laugh at that joke, they’re not actually laughing at the joke itself. They’re laughing at the idea of their idea of a trans person being upset because of the joke.
“Conservative comedy is created to cause harm, and that harm is what conservatives find funny.”
Infinite Contradictions
3/25/25
The enemy is laughably weak but so incredibly strong that we need to unite with the full force of the state to fight them.Helping people hurts people.We need free market competition to stop the monopolies created by free market competition.The victors are the real victims.Your labour is required for society to function, but you don't deserve to be compensated fairly for it.Tyranny is when the public decides where our collective resources should go.
Leavitt: “It’s only because of the United States of America that the French aren’t speaking German right now.”
@jackjenkins.me: … just gonna point out she is saying this just 50 yards or so from Lafayette Square, which sits immediately outside the White House and includes a giant statue of General Marquis de Lafayette, a hero of the Revolution and a visible reminder of the key role France played in securing US independence.
@birrion: Hating Nazis should be the default position.
@alexdmub: “My favorite college professor once said, ‘There are two normative positions everyone needs to hold: Nazis are bad, and slavery is bad.’ Anyone who doesn’t meet both of these criteria shouldn’t be taken seriously.”
You are allowed to say, at any point, I cannot support this. Even if you did before. Even if you were unsure. You can at any point say, This has gone too far. And while the best time to say that was earlier, the second best time is now.
@aeirlys.bsky.social: Do Not Comply In Advance: bossy, already a cliche, implies permission to comply later. Fuck You, Make Me: leads by example, directs yelling at opposition instead of allies, easy to chant at a protest or put on a banner.
@NoLieWithBTC: The Pentagon is about to brief Elon Musk on the US military’s plan for a potential war with China. This means that Musk now has access to the country’s most important military secrets.
lolitalempicka: My favorite quote by Freud is definitely the one where he’s writing to his fiancée and he’s like, I’m gonna make you eat so much. You are just a little weak baby, and I’m a big cokehead. FOUND IT: Woe to you, my princess, when I come. I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are forward you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle little girl who doesn’t eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body, wrote Sigmund Freud to his future wife, Martha Bernays, on June 20.
We All Warned You. We Repeatedly Warned You.
3/25/25
His VP ... warned you.His Chief-of-Staff ... warned you.His Defense Secretary ... warned you.His Joint Chiefs-of-Staff ... warned you.Historians ... warned you.Pundits ... warned you.Former Presidents ... warned you.His sexual assault victim(s) ... warned you.World economists ... warned you.Judges ... warned you. WE ALL WARNED YOU. You looked the other way. You said it was ALL fake news ... because he told you it was.You said he was a great President .
tatanarchist: Is anyone else just, like, constantly filled with rage about their position under late capitalism and how we are expected to just keep playing this game that we know will literally kill us, is already killing people all over the world, and yet everyone around us is somehow fine with going about business as usual–pretending we are free by being able to choose between different ways of being exploited? There is nothing more dehumanizing than being forced to partake in a system that is actively detrimental to our survival as human beings, that is so physically, psychologically, and spiritually destructive. And I don’t know how to deal with this anger anymore.