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kennan
@kennan.bsky.social
Political theory &c. Emphasis on the &c.
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Reposted by kennan
NEW: AI “recipe slop” is overrunning search and social. Food creators say Google’s AI Overviews and glossy fake food pics are drowning out real, tested recipes — collapsing traffic and setting home cooks up for disaster, especially this Thanksgiving.

Gift link: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
AI Slop Recipes Are Taking Over the Internet -- And Thanksgiving Dinner
Food bloggers see traffic dip as home cooks turn to AI, inspired by impossible pictures
www.bloomberg.com
November 25, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Reposted by kennan
Within @aaup.org, there's a lot of advocacy chapters who wonder what power they have without a CBA. We're here to say it doesn't matter. Organizing is organizing is organizing. You want the contract but if you act like a union then you're a union. I call this The Newsies Principle.
November 25, 2025 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by kennan
* Before patenting the now-iconic bear-shaped honey container, the inventor also patented other honey bottle designs. We could've had penguins or creepy clowns instead!
November 25, 2025 at 5:11 AM
Reposted by kennan
* Haribo used to sell a gummi candy in Germany called "Asses With Ears."

I promise this image is 100% real and not AI.
November 25, 2025 at 4:25 AM
Reposted by kennan
* You know how Van Halen had a contract rider demanding bowls of M&Ms with the brown ones removed?

They later claimed that was all a test to make sure venues were reading their contracts. Clever!

BUT WAIT, that claim itself is actually false. I fact-checked it.

Snack Stack exclusive:
In Search of Van Halen's Brown M&Ms
Contract riders and the meaning of a modern pop star
snackstack.net
November 25, 2025 at 4:37 AM
Is this a good sign or a bad sign for the economy?
In the memo, “Nvidia also responds to claims that the ‘current situation is analogous to historical accounting frauds (Enron, WorldCom, Lucent) that featured vendor financing and SPVs [special purpose vehicles.)’”

@barrons.com $NVDA
@firstadopter.bsky.social
www.barrons.com/articles/nvi...
November 24, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Maybe the National
Security Advisor can straighten this all out.
I maybe be just a small-town political scientist but I reckon that the Trump administration's right hand has no fucking idea what its far-right hand is doing.
"US senators say they spoke with Rubio about Trump’s Ukraine peace plan who denied it is a US plan." Welcome to the Topsy Turvy administration in which six or seven people are pursuing their own private foreign policy, and much of it is scripted by a hostile foreign power.
November 23, 2025 at 5:49 AM
Reposted by kennan
Fun fact: November 28, 2001:

"ENRON, which had been a component of the S&P; 500, was removed at the end of trading Thursday and replaced by NVIDIA Corp., a Santa Clara, Calif.-based maker of computer-graphics chips."
November 22, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Reposted by kennan
Because every time something is labeled “vibes”, I go look and it’s just Marxism.
November 22, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Reposted by kennan
TRUMP [after spending 5 minutes with Zohran]: surplus value, it’s a very wonderful thing, very wonderful, and they’re stealing it. Can you believe that?

We’re going to be looking very strongly at the bourgeoisie, what they’re up to
November 21, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Reposted by kennan
If you're wondering why a large chunk of ostensibly left-of-center pundits are waging war on environmental protections in the form of an "abundance agenda," it's because Silicon Valley has quietly developed a culture of rampant pollution.
November 20, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Reposted by kennan
I'd rather die, thanks
Saw a post today that advised writers to stop writing as if a human will read it and start writing for an LLM that will be summarising.

As someone who really enjoyed trying to develop a peculiar but readable authorial voice, I find this incredibly depressing.
November 20, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Weirdly, this whole article is just the same thing restated 18 or so times, without additional evidence or argument.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was a LLM article -- "Write me a 7000 word piece arguing that AI is not a bubble because it is about energy rather than human behavior."
November 19, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by kennan
November 17, 2025 at 4:32 AM
Reposted by kennan
this is actually a really common way of understanding the world among pundits where events can only be classified if they fit a strict definition and if they don’t fit that definition then they cannot be classified in that way. it is as if they see definitions as structuring reality.
November 16, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Why does the Cook County Sheriffs Dept hate Baptists so much?
Oh wow @reuters.com got the photo here:
November 15, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Reposted by kennan
WE WON. I am *begging* you to take note of who did this. *Not* UCLA admin—they’re still scuttling around behind closed doors, attempting to appease—but FACULTY AND STAFF, led by AAUP.
BREAKING: In AAUP et al v. Trump (wall-to-wall union lawsuit challenging the administration’s unlawful use of TItle VI to reshape the University of California system), the faculty and staff of the UC system WON!!!

We were granted our preliminary injunction! @aaup.org
November 15, 2025 at 12:01 AM
Reposted by kennan
my "Indigenous person who has been asked to help write them a truly irritating number of times" opinion is I find them mostly pretty useless and perfunctory

but also despite that perfunctory nature, sometimes they make total assholes incandescently angry, and I find that extremely funny
November 14, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Reposted by kennan
more to the point: "this doesn't do anything" / "this is performative (derogatory)" is a criticism of land acknowledgements I find compelling from people actively engaged in reparations projects and pretty much no else
November 14, 2025 at 12:53 PM
Reposted by kennan
Houses like diamonds are fixed in supply and must be mined in the dark deep of Khazad-dûm
JD Vance: "A lot of young people are saying housing is way too expensive. Why is that? Because we flooded the country with 30 million illegal immigrants who were taking houses that ought by right go to American citizens."
November 14, 2025 at 1:18 AM
Reposted by kennan
I wrote a piece for @frenchhistory.bsky.social about the 40th anniversary of the French bombing of the "Rainbow Warrior."

Huge thanks to @eldrclaire.bsky.social @donalh.bsky.social @meghankroberts.bsky.social & the journal's extremely patient staff.

doi-org.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/10.1093/fh/c...
November 13, 2025 at 4:31 PM
Reposted by kennan
This is what male solidarity & collective action to oppress women looks like:

Artist Andres Serrano--successful, but nowhere near the same class as Thiel & other billionaires in the files--stating that he'll vote for Trump, despite his politics, out of *sympathy* with T's sexual assaults on women.
November 12, 2025 at 10:11 PM
Azari: “impeachment is much more rooted in race and racialized institutions than most accounts would suggest.”
The backlash presidency - Niskanen Center
Julia Azari finds that backlash presidents like Trump tend to follow transformative presidents like Barack Obama who represent changes to the American racial order.
www.niskanencenter.org
November 12, 2025 at 9:51 PM