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Jonathan Mertzig

@mertzigzag.bsky.social

680 followers 440 following 1.7K posts

Madison, WI. - Professional destroyer of software. Sewer Socialist. Queer geek. Wannabe polyglot. Car avoider/Walker/Cyclist/Transit Enthusiast. 🦩🍻 same handle on Fedi @urbanists.social and (formerly) Xitter...

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Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · Nov 15

Wow! Lots of new followers here today. Here’s what you can expect from me:
1) rants about transit & municipal gov (not just in Madison!)
2) poorly informed takes on soccer and sometimes hockey
3) occasional random attempts at arty photography
4) sometimes: beer, tech, Euro and Canadian politics

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 6h

This is the genius of the Portland protests - they make the claims of lawlessness look not just wrong, but comical

The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 9h

The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

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Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · 2h

This is the way. Giant line? Just go to the other equally valid shorter line. The secret to a way more chill airport experience.

M. Nolan Gray 🥑 @mnolangray.bsky.social · 2h

...Walk 10 minutes and go through Terminal 3 security. If non-TSA security tries to turn away, as they did with me, channel no more than 5% of your inner Karen and they'll wave you through. (You have a right to use any security!) Then after security, walk back to Terminal 1.

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The New Republic @newrepublic.com · 9h

“I … met with the governor, met with the mayor, met with the chief of police, and the superintendent of the highway patrol. They’re all lying, and disingenuous, and dishonest people,” Noem said, because they wouldn’t back up her baseless claims that the streets were overrun with terrorists.

ICE Barbie Says an Entire State’s Worth of Officials Are “Lying”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is convinced, against all evidence, that Portland is a war zone.

trib.al

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 4h

When you see scary things in the news, look for the helpers.

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 4h

www.wweek.com/culture/2025...

Can you put into words what that purpose is? You and the frog have really become icons of this protest.

There’s been a nice overall whimsy that has shown up. The frog is amazing. We had a bunch of other inflatable people here last night, too. I saw people playing Twister the other day.

What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid.

It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as “war-torn,” it becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.

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Harald Kliems @haraldkliems.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy · 4h

We have an exceptionally good sidewalk network in #madisonwi, probably contributing to our high scores in pedestrian safety rankings. I'm slowly working my way through town to have that sidewalk network represented in #openstreetmap. It's a lot of work, but […]

[Original post on fosstodon.org]

Screenshot from the iD OpenStreetMap editor, with an aerial imagery background zoomed in pretty far. A sidewalk along Nancy Lane is selected.

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Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · 5h

Well done! Bonus: if he hadn't stopped, it would be one heck of a lawsuit. 🙃

Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · 5h

I don't know why, but in the last few months, shit like this, with drivers aggressively passing other correctly behaving drivers has become the new normal I encounter while commuting on foot. How the heck do we stop this? There is very little enforcement going on--total impunity for bad drivers.

Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · 5h

As people were still in the crosswalk, the driver accelerated and made an illegal pass on the right to go around the stopped car, speeding through the crosswalk just as another person entered it. All to just go a half-block and get stopped at a red light (frankly surprised they stopped there!). 3/

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Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · 5h

We have a crosswalk in the neighborhood with a flashing beacon. It was activated for several groups of people to cross in both directions. Pretty unambiguous why a driver would be stopped. Nonetheless, someone rode right up on a stopped car and laid on the horn... but that was just the beginning. 2/

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Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · 5h

Literally *every day* this week I've encountered bad drivers laying on the horn or acting aggressively toward good drivers rightly stopped to yield for pedestrians in a crosswalk (usually, I'm the pedestrian!) but tonight really takes the cake for unhinged behavior... 1/

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AMG Himself @angrymetalguy.bsky.social · 7h

This has been voted down twice in Sweden, hasn't it? I want to know who the asshole is who decided the thing to do was then to take it to the EU. This is the most draconian pieced of legislation ever produced. Insane.

Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 18h

We're so relieved to see Germany reaffirm its opposition to the dangerous Chat Control proposal--the one that would mandate mass scanning of communications. Germany's long been a solid champion of privacy, and the news that it was considering backing mass surveillance was alarming. 1/

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Steve Burgess @steveburgess53.bsky.social · 7h

DOJ stooges keep saying "No one is above the law," which, translated into Trumpspeak, means: "No one is safe from His vengeance."

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Jake Tobin @jaketobin.bsky.social · 8h

Why is this every city sign

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Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · 8h

Finally I feel like I have something in common with an elite athlete. 😂

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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 9h

🧵 In case you are still wondering why so many of us in the academy are still so very angry about That Column

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 10h

The Rutgers TPUSA chapter — whose characterization of a historian there as a “outspoken, well-known antifa member” led to death threats and moving his family to Europe — think *other* people are being “blatantly defamatory.”

Not them, though. They’re doing politics the right way.

Rutgers TPUSA officers slam petition to shut down chapter, ‘Blatantly defamatory’

Alexander Di Filippo accuses Turning Point USA of inciting violence against Antifa handbook author Mark Bray.

www.foxnews.com

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Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 1d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · 12h

Really gotta watch your step around my office. We’ve got a lot of sidewalk wildlife. Earlier this year it was tiny frogs… then tired bumblebees:.. then grasshoppers and dragonflies… and now a zillion wooly bear caterpillars!

A fast moving caterpillar crossing an asphalt driveway

A putzing caterpillar on a concrete sidewalk—right in the middle of hazardous lunchtime traffic!

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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 14h

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Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · 15h

Krasznahorkai won the Nobel Prize?!
I was buying* his books before he was cool! 📚

(*have yet to actually read one… but that can be said of most of my purchases. 😅)

Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · 16h

I, a random Wisconsinite, probably know (just barely) more about Mikie Sherrill than the average NJ voter thanks to incessant Dem fundraising spam texts. Classic Democrats. 🤦‍♂️

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 16h

Hey, the NJ gubernatorial election is less than a month away.

If the Democrats here want to start rolling out any kind of ad campaign that tells voters what Mikie Sherrill will do, that'd be super.

And no, "I can fly a helicopter" doesn't count.

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Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 1d

The nominative determinism of this specific atrocity is off the charts here.

Patrick De Klotz @patdeklotz.bsky.social · 1d

American citizen, read this. www.koin.com/news/portlan...

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Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · 1d

To be clear, the warehouse scent isn’t unpleasant, but it’s really distinct. IYKYK.👃

Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · 1d

Ordered some towels off Woot not realizing they were a brand associated with a company I used to work for. The box shipped from the company HQ and literally smells like the warehouse scent that was burned into my olfactory bulb in my college years. Not a sensory experience one expects from towels.🧖‍♂️

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Jonathan Mertzig @mertzigzag.bsky.social · 1d

It took until October for my morning glory vines to finally bloom. And apparently they’re more evening glories than morning ones. 🤷‍♂️🌸🌃

A close up shot of a periwinkle morning glory flower. A Portland flag is in the background as this is an Antifa household. ;)

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Ben Coates @bencoates1.bsky.social · 1d

Extinction Rebellion, a group which wants us to fight climate change more urgently, is blocking low-carbon public transport because it’s a part of an anti-palestine economic system, or something. Seems like maybe they haven’t thought things through.

www.ad.nl/binnenland/a...

Activisten Extinction Rebellion lopen spoor op bij Amsterdam Centraal, treinen stilgezet

De activisten van Extinction Rebellion (XR) hebben woensdagavond opnieuw treinsporen geblokkeerd. Ditmaal bij station Amsterdam Centraal. De politie is volop aanwezig op het station.

www.ad.nl

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