John Holbo
@jholbo.bsky.social
Professor of Philosophy, Illustrator of Philosophers
https://www.onbeyondzarathustra.com
https://www.onbeyondzarathustra.com
Reposted by John Holbo
real Lunar spacesuit designed by the British interplanetary society.
I think it would be perfect for a comic, (it even has a cape!!!!)
I think it would be perfect for a comic, (it even has a cape!!!!)
November 26, 2025 at 2:15 PM
real Lunar spacesuit designed by the British interplanetary society.
I think it would be perfect for a comic, (it even has a cape!!!!)
I think it would be perfect for a comic, (it even has a cape!!!!)
Love the lettering.
November 26, 2025 at 12:46 PM
Love the lettering.
The least unsympathetic version of Trump: severely delusional, utterly exhausted Trump. (For him, it doesn’t get more human than this.)
November 26, 2025 at 3:23 AM
The least unsympathetic version of Trump: severely delusional, utterly exhausted Trump. (For him, it doesn’t get more human than this.)
Comics artist bursts into the police station.
Comics artist: What ARE you?
Cop: Me? I'm a cop.
Comics artist: What ARE you?
Cop: Me? I'm a cop.
November 26, 2025 at 1:34 AM
Comics artist bursts into the police station.
Comics artist: What ARE you?
Cop: Me? I'm a cop.
Comics artist: What ARE you?
Cop: Me? I'm a cop.
These Democratic lawmakers and their threats!
'Dat's a nice government you got 'dere. Be a shame if rule of law wuz ta HAPPEN to it.'
'Dat's a nice government you got 'dere. Be a shame if rule of law wuz ta HAPPEN to it.'
November 25, 2025 at 11:47 PM
These Democratic lawmakers and their threats!
'Dat's a nice government you got 'dere. Be a shame if rule of law wuz ta HAPPEN to it.'
'Dat's a nice government you got 'dere. Be a shame if rule of law wuz ta HAPPEN to it.'
Reposted by John Holbo
First Secretary of Defense you could defeat by painting a tunnel on the side of a boulder.
November 25, 2025 at 1:55 PM
First Secretary of Defense you could defeat by painting a tunnel on the side of a boulder.
Reposted by John Holbo
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.
They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
November 25, 2025 at 9:26 AM
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.
They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
I just watched some clips of Joel Berry arguing with Tim Pool and Auron McIntyre. How to express it? They are nihilists suffering from severe false consciousness. They want to want something they don't really want. And they DON'T want for what they DO want to be what it really truly IS.
November 25, 2025 at 1:01 AM
I just watched some clips of Joel Berry arguing with Tim Pool and Auron McIntyre. How to express it? They are nihilists suffering from severe false consciousness. They want to want something they don't really want. And they DON'T want for what they DO want to be what it really truly IS.
He just speed-read the first line? 'the United States boldly ... military custom ... swearing loyalty to a leader.'
Trump didn’t read before posting:
“OUR AMERICAN CODE OF MILITARY OBEDIENCE REQUIRES THAT, SHOULD ORDERS AND THE LAW EVER CONFLICT, OUR OFFICERS MUST OBEY THE LAW.”
“OUR AMERICAN CODE OF MILITARY OBEDIENCE REQUIRES THAT, SHOULD ORDERS AND THE LAW EVER CONFLICT, OUR OFFICERS MUST OBEY THE LAW.”
November 25, 2025 at 12:04 AM
He just speed-read the first line? 'the United States boldly ... military custom ... swearing loyalty to a leader.'
This is presented as dark worry but is, honestly, so wildly sunny. It ignores fascism domestically and, as for foreign policy - well, there's a reason no one says if you want to understand how Trump's casino bankruptcies ended with him holding the bag, you need to study 19th c. British history.
November 24, 2025 at 11:46 PM
This is presented as dark worry but is, honestly, so wildly sunny. It ignores fascism domestically and, as for foreign policy - well, there's a reason no one says if you want to understand how Trump's casino bankruptcies ended with him holding the bag, you need to study 19th c. British history.
Reposted by John Holbo
Every Democrat in Congress should put out a video saying troops have an obligation to refuse unlawful orders. Make them prosecute all of you. This isn't a close call.
I'd add Republicans too if I thought any of them had the courage to actually cross Trump on this.
I'd add Republicans too if I thought any of them had the courage to actually cross Trump on this.
Hegseth is now threatening to recall Sen. Mark Kelly to active duty in order to court martial him.
November 24, 2025 at 5:52 PM
Every Democrat in Congress should put out a video saying troops have an obligation to refuse unlawful orders. Make them prosecute all of you. This isn't a close call.
I'd add Republicans too if I thought any of them had the courage to actually cross Trump on this.
I'd add Republicans too if I thought any of them had the courage to actually cross Trump on this.
The last two Udo Kier films I watched were: "Bacurau" (2019) - a surreal, weird-west-y art-y-grindhouse-y thing - and "Blade". Good ol' "Blade". Udo Kier had an Udo Kier dial on him that didn't go below 11. And no one else has an Udo Kier dial on them. Or maybe I'm wrong. Did he dial it down once?
November 24, 2025 at 9:09 AM
The last two Udo Kier films I watched were: "Bacurau" (2019) - a surreal, weird-west-y art-y-grindhouse-y thing - and "Blade". Good ol' "Blade". Udo Kier had an Udo Kier dial on him that didn't go below 11. And no one else has an Udo Kier dial on them. Or maybe I'm wrong. Did he dial it down once?
Dude cannot catch a break.
open.bu.edu/server/api/c...
open.bu.edu/server/api/c...
!["A German writer," it [the Anti-Jacobin Review] informed its readers, "is, in general, a man that is discontented with every thing about him; his chief happiness, and glory consist in publishing a successful journal."44 In no land was the "itch for writing and publishing" so pervasive. One correspondent wrote that there were
about eight or ten thousand persons in Germany who derive their live- lihood entirely, or the greater part of it, from scribbling, or, as they call it, enlightening the public mind.45
In some German universities, the Review reported, "not a single professor is to be found who dares admit the existence of a God." The Elector of Saxony, it reported, "has lately been obliged to suppress a periodical publication, written by professor Jena, entitled the Philosophical Journal, in which atheism was openly recommended. "Subsequent articles in the Review recognized that Jena was, in fact, a town, not a person, and stated that the atheist "professor of philosophy, or, rather, of philosophism" was a man named "Furchte." - Accuracy was not one of the Review's strong points."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:b7nwyonilwymqnwhomv6yfvy/bafkreiggtflkgkm74e3urhwd6dcmuh6esyjn75oiz74pjsiowkr5wdyw4m@jpeg)
November 24, 2025 at 7:57 AM
Dude cannot catch a break.
open.bu.edu/server/api/c...
open.bu.edu/server/api/c...
We need to reshore the manufacturing base of paranoid-style politics. Americans don’t make things (that don’t exist) anymore. Think about how no MAGA believes Trump lost in 2020, also no MAGA has a theory of how Biden stole it. Italian satellites bamboo in the ballots Hugo Chavez’ ghost 2000 mules?
If I’m understanding this correctly, X is owned by a white nationalist who pays poor people of color in developing countries to pretend to be working class white Americans to scare other white Americans into being afraid poor people of color from developing countries are going to ruin America?
November 24, 2025 at 2:06 AM
We need to reshore the manufacturing base of paranoid-style politics. Americans don’t make things (that don’t exist) anymore. Think about how no MAGA believes Trump lost in 2020, also no MAGA has a theory of how Biden stole it. Italian satellites bamboo in the ballots Hugo Chavez’ ghost 2000 mules?
Had a liberal or leftist attempted anything 1% as headlong heedless of consequences as DOGE, it would have provided fodder for pious, ‘Chesterton’s Fence’ sermons about unintended consequences until the year 2400. It would have been the biggest argument for Burke since the Jacobins declared Year 1.
It remains insane to me that DOGE was treated at the time as an impressive shock and awe accomplishment - “you can’t deny he’s getting stuff done!” - and then instantly memory holed by the press once if became clear it was a total failure by every possible standard including Musk’s own
Difficult to overstate how profound a failure DOGE was. Spending in FY2025 was not only than in FY2024 – but higher than it was projected to be when Trump first took office.*
The little bit of spending DOGE cut has already killed hundreds of thousands and will eventually lead to millions of deaths.
The little bit of spending DOGE cut has already killed hundreds of thousands and will eventually lead to millions of deaths.
November 24, 2025 at 1:42 AM
Had a liberal or leftist attempted anything 1% as headlong heedless of consequences as DOGE, it would have provided fodder for pious, ‘Chesterton’s Fence’ sermons about unintended consequences until the year 2400. It would have been the biggest argument for Burke since the Jacobins declared Year 1.
Reposted by John Holbo
Bad.
President insists his word is the one and only law in this land.
November 23, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Bad.
Reposted by John Holbo
The dialectic of MAGA's great minds...
November 22, 2025 at 6:36 PM
The dialectic of MAGA's great minds...
Reposted by John Holbo
Utterly lawless
November 23, 2025 at 2:55 AM
Utterly lawless
When you're going for Gore Vidal but you're hitting more Troy McClure.
November 23, 2025 at 5:45 AM
When you're going for Gore Vidal but you're hitting more Troy McClure.
Reposted by John Holbo
Reposted by John Holbo
Congress wrote into the law that someone who overstays a visa while applying for asylum is not considered to be accruing “unlawful presence,” but it didn’t explicitly say those people couldn’t be arrested and detained — because it was presumed that they wouldn’t be. Well, Trump is doing it.
We came to LA as refugees from the USSR in 1991. Life wasn’t easy, but we persevered and, I dare say, came to contribute something of worth to this nation.
Had I experienced the following when I was a boy, I don’t know what would have become of me.
www.latimes.com/california/s...
Had I experienced the following when I was a boy, I don’t know what would have become of me.
www.latimes.com/california/s...
November 23, 2025 at 3:54 AM
Congress wrote into the law that someone who overstays a visa while applying for asylum is not considered to be accruing “unlawful presence,” but it didn’t explicitly say those people couldn’t be arrested and detained — because it was presumed that they wouldn’t be. Well, Trump is doing it.
I think Frederick William III may be the most anti-woke politician on historical record. He had severe daddy issues AND rather than going to therapy he just didn't use personal pronouns AND the military stopped using personal pronouns as a result? Based.
!["Frederick William was born in Potsdam on 3 August 1770 as the son of Frederick William II of Prussia and Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt. He was considered to be a shy and reserved boy, which became noticeable in his particularly reticent conversations, distinguished by the lack of personal pronouns. This manner of speech subsequently came to be considered entirely appropriate for military officers.[1] He was neglected by his father during his childhood and suffered from an inferiority complex his entire life.[2"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:b7nwyonilwymqnwhomv6yfvy/bafkreiahmfcbb3klpfkij4wa35o6ylztusf2v46vfcu527vuxtnhgu7hda@jpeg)
November 23, 2025 at 4:17 AM
I think Frederick William III may be the most anti-woke politician on historical record. He had severe daddy issues AND rather than going to therapy he just didn't use personal pronouns AND the military stopped using personal pronouns as a result? Based.
I predict that if we have a pandemic, the Trump administration will not handle it well.
2/ The U.S. Department of Agriculture typically attributes bird flu outbreaks to cases where farmers have not done enough to protect flocks from contamination by wild birds.
But that's not what happened here.
www.propublica.org/article/bird...
But that's not what happened here.
www.propublica.org/article/bird...
What the U.S. Government Is Dismissing That Could Seed a Bird Flu Pandemic
Egg producers suspect bird flu is traveling through the air. After a disastrous Midwestern outbreak early this year, we tested that theory and found that where the wind blew, the virus followed. Vacci...
www.propublica.org
November 23, 2025 at 3:40 AM
I predict that if we have a pandemic, the Trump administration will not handle it well.
Not easy to be John Roberts. You've got a job to do. You LOVE your job and you would be happy to just do your job and retire and people would remember you were good at it. But you also have the people you work for - the people who got you your job. You owe them. And now THIS guy, bringing the heat.
November 23, 2025 at 3:27 AM
Not easy to be John Roberts. You've got a job to do. You LOVE your job and you would be happy to just do your job and retire and people would remember you were good at it. But you also have the people you work for - the people who got you your job. You owe them. And now THIS guy, bringing the heat.