Recent posts by Online Political Thinkers on Bluesky

I think the psychotic anti-AI people are irritating but they’re also about as threatening as a toothless chihuahua ime, like your threshold for unpleasantness is low enough they drive you off I don’t get how you’re still on X

I did go from wanting to be someone Now I'm drunk and wearing flip flops on Fifth Avenue

Got my fetching new red leather jacket on

Genuinely wonder who in the White House is leaking to the press about Natalie Harp. Everyone always has a reason to leak.

With all these recalls, the only left that’s safe to eat is the rich

the only people god intends to see your analysis are editors and reviewers whose approval you desperately crave and with whom you seethe with resentment against

For all the pearl clutching in Washington about Jon Ossoff’s comments about Natalie Harp, my stepdad, an Irish Catholic guy from the Lehigh Valley and MS NOW watcher, sent me a clip of Jon Ossoff and said he’d vote for Ossoff for president.

we went to see steve earle the other night and he name checked Donovan and I was pretty much the only one who responded with enthusiasm. 1

this is going to run...well I guess later this morning. sign up and it'll be in your inbox, whoosh. open.substack.com/pub/noahberl...

snakecels seething over vowelchads

This shirt hates AI so hard.

In the 80s Pepsi did this thing called The Pepsi Challenge at amusement parks and filmed people taking a blind taste test and then they ran ads with like 8 people picking Pepsi but they didn't show you the 300 people that chose Coke because they knew people only drank Pepsi if they were tricked

This LOOKS LIKE a Cessna 172N Skyhawk? If so, it's N272WC. ✈️

Exactly. They're pulling the whole "you better jump on or you'll miss out" argument scammers and fuckbois have been using since the dawn of time. If it was such a useful and life-changing experience for the general population, you wouldn't need to say all that

You have one (minor, resolving) family crisis and you miss a whole discourse

the puppy is finally, thank jesus and all the saints, pretty much housetrained. she does, however, still do silent but deadly farts.

Perfect framing for tonight's murder sunset. 🐦‍⬛ 🪶

Yes he should definitely be trusted now and not when he was under oath.

Zankou chicken has the weirdest fucking vibes. It’s like a restaurant in a David Lynch film

Richard Ayoade will be in the new Taskmaster series. I am very excited.

folks I'd say we're in uncharted terrotory but I know you're all making tables and graphs with that data

so, like, what exactly does Susie Wiles do all day

Great time canvassing for Carey McDonald in Malden tonight!

Maybe I'm in the minority here but if people who support AI are being shamed into silence then it's working. The shame is working as intended. The left's biggest problem is that it's afraid to hurt the feelings of folks who need to have their feelings hurt. Let them experience introspection for once

In hell?

If the average person knew how much influence executive branch special assistants can exert over the execution of U.S. government policy, the positions would be Senate-confirmed

The last time a person who talks like that got this close to a president was March 30, 1981.

The most transactional marriage ever

It is unfair to the virility of spreadsheets.

And to be clear, this is just 185 potential noncitizens who are *registered* to vote, not 185 potential noncitizens who *voted.*

Pet peeve: the NIMBY progressivism that is eager to back progressive challengers elsewhere but will then defend the most reactionary incumbents in their own district

I do not think he hates to say it

you can't fool me, this is a campaign prop for a King in Yellow game.

if you are a restaurant in Los Angeles and you cannot compete with a taco truck you should not be a restaurant in Los Angeles. this is very basic “slowest zebra on the savanna” stuff

I have hardly used AI at all other than in a "what the hell is this all about" way but today chatGPT made exactly the picture I wanted for a joke on a family group chat and I feel kind of dirty.

Duffy tells his daughter, on a government-sponsored video, that he won’t allow her to go to Harvard. Then he visits Harvard. Now he’s salivating at the idea his kid might go to Harvard.

I like Mike and often agree with him. but yeah, AI and Nazi shit are intertwined at the moment, and this is an example of that. 1

Dress for the job you want.

excited to say I have found a third letter

I wonder if archaeologists are looking at these letters and reconsidering that perhaps some of the retainers buried with ancient kings and pharaohs might’ve crawled in to the grave with them willingly

a good boy went to his first vet appointment so he gets to jump in the hay box for a minute

We're back. Crows... Unsure

It took me 7 months to get WH security clearance

MAGA DEI www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2026/08/maga...

If you make videos on the internet I will not see them. You will not reach me. You do not exist.

Trump had Cabinet members who discussed the 25th Amendment when he was 8 years more lucid than he is now.

If I don't know you, and you tell me "don't talk about this thing," I am just going to block you, because that's the easiest way to keep you from having to see what I write, which you've just told me you don't want to do?

I take the getty watermark seriously but this is still some uncanny valley-looking BS.

One thing WhatsApp gets right is that I actually just want to text all my IndyCar fan friends at once for the next 72 hours without creating a whole group chat community about it

AI compromise position of nonlinear algebra only

These letters have been known for some time, but not their full contents. We know Wiles leaks like a sieve; photographs have to come from her or someone close. It doesn't say much new about Harp, but to see it in one place is striking. She's sick. Not even in regards to Trump. She is not well.

I think the GOP was bound to get a Trump-like figure at some point given its trajectory. And whoever that figure was would be uniquely bad, because the GOP has been selecting for ignorance and fascism really since at least Reagan.

braver than the troops

looking at the Capitalization I have to conclude she is some kind of East German sleeper agent

If there’s any more perfect pop than power pop why did they name it that One answer is “Sing Me Spanish Techno” but there are a few New Pornographers songs I could put here

this isn't going back in time. he's the president of the country. it is relevant if the president is a racist, a con-man, a cheat, and a mob-style boss." (he is.)

She literally could've left it at, "I do not believe you should have a food vendor in front of a restaurant" and that would've been fine. I am comfortable with fairness and regulations. But then she continues to say she just doesn't like food trucks. Such a dumb way to incur self-inflicted damage.

The NY Times hasn't lost a US defamation suit in more than a half-century. They lost one today, to the tune of $9.5 million. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/20/b...

my mutuals contain multitudes

I forget, is this a "the DSA obviously has nothing to do with actual communism and it's McCarthyist red-baiting to suggest such a thing; DSA is just social democracy which is just left-liberalism" week, or an "in this DSA house we stan Fidel Castro" week? www.dsausa.org/statements/d...

sneaking trees out in my pocket to sell them on the black market

Michigan Senate polls — post-primary SUSQUEHANNA El-Sayed 46%, Rogers 39% (D+7) FABRIZIO/IMPACT El-Sayed 48%, Rogers 47% (D+1) TIPP INSIGHTS (R) El-Sayed 45, Rogers 42% (D+3) GBAO (D) El-Sayed 50%, Rogers 44 (D+6) FOX NEWS - BEACON/SHAW Rogers 51%, El-Sayed 47% (R+4)

Criticisms of the Freedom 250 I want to see more of: -consistent refusal to treat DC as a place people actually live -logistically miserable for fans AND pros including drivers -we all know it will not be good racing Criticisms we’re getting: -they’ll set the Declaration of Independence on fire

This would seem to be the kind of "cancellation" where you see an opportunity to make more money by doing less work and take it

That diesel number... good luck

👀 Goodness gracious (as #UCLA legend John Wooden used to say): I cannot believe Karen Bass has now come out against taco trucks ... checks notes ... in Los FREAKING Angeles‼️ Donald Trump approves of this message. 😱 www.latimes.com/california/s...

Remember, when even Teasury bonds don't look like a safe bet, that means it's time to invest in the one asset you can always depend on: books about urban policy. bookshop.org/p/books/buil...

I think Wahab's legacy in the state legislature is mostly negative, but I ended up rooting for this outcome largely out of hatred for AIPAC.

“August is solidly Covid season,” said Dr. Caitlin Rivers, at Johns Hopkins. “Right now, the South and the West are sort of the leading edge of this Covid season.” “The traditional respiratory virus season hasn’t started, but Covid is already climbing” www.cnn.com/2026/08/20/h...

“And please, when I fail, will you tell me? You have the absolute right to cuss me out, if need be, when I deserve it, because no one knows or cares about me more.” … “With all my heart, Natalie”

“These images, which I’ve started calling subtlefakes, are not as clearly offensive, but are a lot more convincing. The concerning implication is it’s not just the tech that is advancing now, but that people who wield it maliciously are getting more sophisticated.” www.404media.co/subtlefakes-...

Was trying to tell offspring about how, though I remain a fan of the Lemonheads' "Stove," I can never hear their tune "Into Your Arms" without thinking of the parody "Hickory Farms." And then the Internet let me down, because it's not online. Only one post mentions the parody, and it's paywalled.

Amazing. Absolutely amazing. youtube.com/shorts/BOwUM...

This should forever be Elon Musk's legacy. Not spaceships. Not electric cars. Starvation. Misery. Mass murder.

Are you telling me that an administration filled with antisemites wasn’t sincere about its antisemitism investigations? Who could’ve known? www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

I can’t even make any sense of this discourse but as a spreadsheet person, you don’t hear much about lots of ways AI is actually useful for the same reason you don’t hear much about spreadsheets or transcription services—it’s just software, people care about the what not the how.

Again, I don't recognize AIPAC as part of Jewish culture because they refuse to bargain hunt

a reminder that a number of people purport to believe this is the result of Chinese propaganda. They are idiots or liars.

They claimed everyone would leave when Zohran was elected, but now NYC is such a vibe that even the otters are coming back

stop nermalizing this

Karen Bass is trying to win over Spencer Pratt voters by being a loud dumbass

Not a bad way of thinking about it. But I'm much more worried about GOP party actors than I am about voters, so this summer's combination of GOP voters drifting away from Trump but the party unable to do so...not great.

spreadsheets georg, who just really enjoys a pivot table

We are experiencing what Salinger, in his greatest work, called “crazy Georgia rain”

They’re just making fodder for bigots to use. With our tax dollars.

If Dems do it right in 2028 - that "$40 trillion number" is going to be more than magical for all these Republicans - in 884 days.

Close the Camps. Free the Families. Bring Them Home.

If Demsget it right in 2028 - that "$40 trillion number" is going to be more than magical for all these Republicans - in 884 days.

Technology that makes cancer vaccines a reality should be treated like Operation Warp Speed. Instead, the government has cancelled $500 million in mRNA vaccine research.

Probably not the kind of practice we should be cutting short.

It was probably gross

Pretty rich they they’re dong this at the same time that his neglect and stupid ego war have turned an aircraft carrier into Lord of the Flies.

key scientific skill: going three or more pages into the google results to see if someone already posted for free the proprietary dataset they want you to pay for

185 *potential anamolies* in *registrations* ! That could literally be zero illegal votes

Easiest Day One EO is renaming it back. Hell, if I were the Dem President getting sworn in in Jan 2029, I’d take the oath of office and then sign that EO right on the podium before beginning my speech.

fwiw, I have a friend who's a mathematician who has been following AI use in the field and says that it does seem to be useful in some pretty limited and specific cases in finding certain kinds of solutions. So, not transformative, but a helpful tool sometimes. 1

Wrote about the incredible opportunity that smart unions have right now to get friendly with DSA politicians. The first ones will reap the greatest rewards. inthesetimes.com/article/labo...