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Reposted by Chris McLaren

Mark Bray @mark-bray.bsky.social · 4h

“Someone” cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second.

We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’

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darth™️ @darthbluesky.bsky.social · 5h

"we are going to murder americans without due process"
~pam bondi, US attorney general

Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 8h

My gosh. After the US bombed multiple boats in the middle of the ocean, murdering people on grounds that they were allegedly "carrying drugs," the US Attorney General says "Just like we did with cartels, we're going to take the same approach, President Trump, with Antifa."

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 3h

Top tier criminal mastermind day.

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 3h

Top tier adult human day.

Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 3h

Politics nerds get this, but why aren't there people out there everyday explaining to everyone how an independent DoJ was a key part of things up til now? Why not explain _why_ that was important, just to prevent the kind of thing that's happening now?

Same as all the other checks'n'balances stuff.

Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 4h

There is so much in this WSJ piece on what Trump has done / plans to do with the Justice Dept it's impossible to sum it up, but:

* Indictments planned for a half dozen current / former officials Trump dislikes

* So many have resigned from that whole sections are gutted

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Inside the Justice Department Where the President Calls the Shots

The president has executed a wholesale transformation of the Justice Department, taking control in ways he could have only dreamed of in his first term.

www.wsj.com

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ms. wendy @wendyleftmealone.bsky.social · 5h

art's so fucking sick bro you're telling me that came from your MIND and through you and onto the page.

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 3h

"the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa"

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 4h

Antifa’s Girlfriend

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 4h

Just watching now. The shots:mess curve seems accurate to the previous science i've done in this area.

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P.A. Cornell (She/Her) @cornellwriter.bsky.social · 6h

Toronto.

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 8h

What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 5h

A few blocks from my Boston office. A few blocks from where we had ReaderCon.

Glad the city is getting up in their business, and proud of anyone who's out there protesting.

gbhnews @gbhnews.bsky.social · 5h

There's an ICE office that's become a detention center right next to the Burlington Mall. Burlington's town government wants to "investigate and take corrective action." https://bit.ly/46X0jDj

Burlington Town Meeting votes to condemn ICE center

Effort seeks access to inspect the facility and enforce zoning compliance.

bit.ly

Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 5h

New additions to the library in the last three months.

See anything you've liked, or are interested in?

Covers of 24 books, three of which overlap from last time and are shaded out.

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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 9h

A Shortlist of Federal Data the Trump Administration Has Tampered With or Destroyed talkingpointsmemo.com/news/a-short...

A Shortlist of Federal Data the Trump Administration Has Tampered With or Destroyed

The scale and scope of federal data and statistics that have been...

talkingpointsmemo.com

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 8h

Quote source:

American Blues-Music Maker Relief Foundation: Meet Guitar Gabriel

www.ibiblio.org

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 8h

"I have played so much guitar it could make your ass hurt.

Blues is something that you do not find in no notes. You don't find it on paper. It is something which is in your heart. You got to feel it to do it. If you live it you know what I'm talking about."

--Guitar Gabriel

The late Guitar Gabriel holding his guitar, in a B&W portrait.

Below the portrait is the quote "I've played so much guitar it'd make you ass hurt."

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 8h

I don't know why, but in my head you also did Chinese.

Maybe that was a multi-verse Jocelyne that I met when I was on walkabout.

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James Enge @jamesenge.bsky.social · 10h

From this we get (a) Mike Johnson is scared of brown people (or chooses to pretend he is for political reasons, which is even more contemptible), and (b) he is more concerned with what “they” pay a corporation than how women get treated.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 14h

Mike Johnson: "If you're a young, pregnant American citizen women who shows up in an ER and you get treated and they pay the hospital less for treating you than some illegal rabble rouser who came in from some South American country to do us harm, that is wrong."

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 11h

Pritzker: "This guy is unhinged. He's insecure. He's a wannabe dictator. And there's one thing I really want to say to Donald Trump. If you come for my people, you come through me. So come and get me."

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 10h

Ingeborg Bachmann (again with the right translator), she of the "I am writing with my burnt hands about the nature of fire' line, might also have some of what you want.

humanless
Enchanted cloud castle in which we drift...
Who knows if we haven't been through many heavens so draw with glazed eyes?
We, exiled in time and kicked out of the room
we, flyers through the night and bottomless.
Who knows if we haven't already flown for God and because we foamed like an arrow without seeing him and our seeds flung on, to live on in even darker generations, driving guilty now?
Who knows if we haven't been dying for a long, long time?
The cloud ball with us strives higher and higher.
The thin air is already paralyzing your hands today, and if the voice breaks and our breath stops...?
Does enchantment remain for the last few moments?

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 10h

Have you tried the Russians? With the right translator Anna Akhmatova is party unto herself.

The Last Toast
I drink to our ruined house, to the dolor of my life, to our loneliness together; and to you I raise my glass, to lying lips that have betrayed us, to dead-cold, pitiless eyes, and to the hard realities: that the world is brutal and coarse, that God in fact has not saved us.
- 1934

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 10h

It boggle me that this little detail has stuck in my head for like 40 years, but with the internet I can determine that the game was called Powers and Perils (something I did no remember, unlike "foyson theft"), and even bring up the text (which I haven't seen in 4 decades).

The cover of the boxed set POWERS & PERILS from Avalon Hill, a fantasy TTRPG

Foyson Theft
ALIGNMENT
Sidh Magic
"Foyson" is a Scotch term meaning "the goodness in food". The spell allows the Caster to extract the nutritional value from any food within his Range. The appearance of the food affected is unchanged. It appears wholesome but has no nutritional value. Anyone who eats it gains nothing.
The foyson extracted materializes in the hand of the Caster as a fine flour like substance. This material con-tains ALL of the nutritional value of the food affected by the spell. The spell will only affect raw or prepared foods. It has no effect on animate or magical creatures.
BMC-1
RANGEEL/2", rounded down.
FOOD POINTS 2 (EL factor applies as a power.)
WEIGHT The weight of the powder created is 1/8 pound per 16 food points converted.

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 10h

There was an RPG that I bought as a kid, and read, but never played that had a spell called "foyson theft". It took the nutritive value out of food without changing the appearance or solidity of the food. This was apparently based on old faery lore. Maybe Wendy's is up to fae tricks.

Fairy Thefts

Richard H. Fay is back to the occult this week for his final occult post in this series (but check back next week for a post on a different subject!). The darker side of fairy lore is something th…

classicallyeducated.wordpress.com

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 11h

Human rights apply to all humans, or they aren't human rights.

No debating who gets to be people.

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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 11h

Marco Rubio is going to hell.

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Chris McLaren @chrismclaren.com · 11h

This one is just for @brainvsbook.bsky.social, or I guess anyone else who can read the language, but the rest of you can read the alt text.

In youth I knew nothing of the taste of sorrow
I liked to climb high towers,
I liked to climb high towers
To conjure up a bit of sorrow to make new verse.

Now I know only too well the taste of sorrow.
I begin to speak yet pause,
I begin to speak yet pause
And say instead, "My, what a cool and lovely autumn."

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