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@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

In the event that anyone was confused about the leaning of this particular website, their headline covering Rob and Michele Reiner's murders is bad enough. The fact that they put it under the heading "Political Crime and Corruption" tells you all you need to know.

It's a propaganda mill.

Screen capture of article listing on Shore News Network for the article covering Rob Reiner's death. The headline reads "Trump Hating Actor Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner found dead at Brentwood home as LAPD probes apparent homicide". The picture to the left of the headline is a still from the television show "All in the Family" showing a young Rob Reiner holding playing cards in his hand as a young Sally Struthers looks over his shoulder.

The tags listed for the story are Breaking News; Conservative Times; Entertainment News; Featured News; Highlights; Investigative Report; New Jersey News; Police Blotter; Political Crime and Corruption; Shore News.

December 21, 2025 at 12:14 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

I don't know this particular man's situation, but it is terrifying that this is the caliber of reporting we can expect when ICE decides you're an illegal alien.

"having entered the United States at an unknown time and location"?

We trust the word of people who kidnap US citizens why again?

Excerpt from a 17 December 2025 Shore News Network article titled "Drug Dealing Illegal Alien Used Barbershop as Front for Retail Cocaine Business":

Investigators said Goris-Andujar was in the country illegally, having entered the United States at an unknown time and location without inspection or authorization. During a search of his residence, officers recovered an AR-type rifle and a pistol equipped with high-capacity magazines, both of which were in violation of federal law. ICE officials said the weapons and ammunition were seized as evidence.

[end excerpt.]

The full article can be read, archived, at https://archive.ph/iQ1ky

December 20, 2025 at 11:29 PM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

This looks like they ran it through the same shit OCR that the Library of Congress has used for the Newspaper archives.

Screen capture of the results from https://www.justice.gov/epstein/search for the word "Trump".

EFTA00000037.pdf - DataSet 1

iBT - BARRON'S D 80 # I TOEFL iBT - G i FIRE AND FURY E INSIDE THE TRUMP WHITE HOUSE - MICHAEL WOLF e FIRE AND FURY INSIDE THE TRUMP WRITE HOUSE * MICHAEL

EFTA00000135.pdf - DataSet 1

THE SEXIND MARNHART DE HALL ARME Eye and Brain MARCIA CLARK WITHOUT Dount 4 OURAGE Turesmith TITAN TOWNY BATHROOMS CUVY CIRCUES AND TRUMP THE ART "The

[end text.]

It is riddled with typos and errors that are indicative of ancient optical character recognition technology.

File https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%201/EFTA00000037.pdf , which is a picture of the inside of a closet. On the right is a long-sleeved blue hoodie hanging on a wooden hanger, which is hung on a metal rod. There are three empty hangers beyond it.

To the left and in the center are stackable, mesh-front organizing bins for offices. On top of the center bin is a stack of five books, with two Prismacolor VHS video cassette cases sitting on top of those. The top two books are two copies of Barron's TOEFL IBT study guides. The bottom three books are each a copy of Michael Wolff's 2018 "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House".

The visible bin labels on the center stackables read "large envelopes", behind which a closed cardboard box is visible; "small envelopes", behind which are two unopened reams of copy paper; "JE stationary", behind which can be seen an open box containing papers (the text is illegible on the top sheet) and an object that could either be a paperback book or a VHS cassette; there are two unlabeled drawers beneath this: the top of which has a cardboard box with an unreadable UPC on it and the bottom of which is cut out of the picture but we can see the rim of the drawer.

The visible labels on the right stackables read "Pens Pencils Markers", behind which is a box without a lid, contents unknown; an unlabeled drawer which contains markers; "Misc Office Supply", which looks to be that; "Staples", which contains boxes that could either be VHS cassette covers or staple boxes, it's hard to say; "Paper Clips Rubber Bands", which does contain a box that has those clips used to keep large stacks of paper together, but there is also something that looks like an audio cassette recorder in there, and a white plastic card of some kind. There are two unlabeled drawers beneath; one has boxes in it, the other is empty.

File https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%201/EFTA00000135.pdf, a photograph of what might be a study's shelves. There is a blue and white vase on the left third of frame in the front, obscuring the books on the shelves behind it. There are four sections of book shelving visible, three of which have closed glass doors in front. Those units each contain four shelves. The fourth unit to the right of frame only has three shelves.

"Trump: The Art of the Deal" by Donald Trump and Tony Schwartz, published in 1987, can be seen in the second shelving unit (from left to right) on the third shelf (from top to bottom), partially obscured by the vase. To its right on the same shelf is "Dragon" by Clive Cussler (no dust jacket); above it is a book titled "Bathrooms".

December 20, 2025 at 12:00 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

#AltText for those who need it:

December 19, 2025:

Press Statement from Mustapha Kharbouch's legal team:

Our client, Mustapha Kharbouch, has been attacked in an online smear campaign in response to the horrific mass shooting that killed two students and injured several others at Brown University last week. Mustapha is a beloved and exemplary member of the Brown University community, an exceptional student, and an engaged citizen of the world.

For the last week, he has been the target of a disturbing, racist, and hateful campaign to connect him to the tragedy carried out on Brown's campus. These baseless attacks not only smeared Mustapha, they also likely distracted law enforcement from pursuing legitimate leads. Before the suspected shooter was identified and found, Mustapha's legal team responded to inquiries from law enforcement authorities about his whereabouts on the day of the shooting.

Let's be clear: racism against Palestinians is at the core of these baseless attacks. Bad faith actors moved to pin the shooting on Mustapha, on the mere basis of his being Palestinian. These claims about Mustapha are not just attacks on his character but also attempts to vilify Arab and Muslim members of our communities and to bolster anti-Palestinian racism in this country. We've already seen the tragic end result of such unchecked racism: the murder of 6-year-old Wadea al-Fayoume, a Palestinian boy in Chicago; and the shooting of three Palestinian-American students in Vermont in 2023, including another Brown student.

[continued next image]

After far-right online influencers posted hateful vitriol attempting to connect Mustapha to the horrific shooting on Saturday, several Brown University webpages which contained references to him were removed. This is a standard precautionary measure, to ensure the personal safety of any individual who has been doxxed.

No person should have to endure what Mustapha did, simply because of their identity. Now that the shooter has been identified, we hope that Mustapha and the rest of the Brown community can move forward and properly grieve.

Mustapha Kharbouch adds:

"The past few days have been an unimaginable nightmare. I woke up on Tuesday moming to unfounded, vile, Islamophobic, and anti-Palestinian accusations being directed toward me online. Instead of grieving with my community in the aftermath of the horrible shooting, I received non-stop death threats and hate speech. This is, however, nothing compared to the ongoing acts of genocide against Palestinians living in occupied Gaza and the West Bank. But it is a story every Arab, Muslim, Palestinian, and marginalized person knows all too well we should not live in a world where this is acceptable or normal. I refuse to be silenced by anyone who comes after me for my identity and advocacy for Palestinians a people I happen to owe my entire existence to. Even in this nightmare, I have been flooded with incredible messages of support from friends, faculty, staff, and strangers alike, and it is because of them that I continue to have faith in a world that stands up against all forms of racism."

[end.]

December 19, 2025 at 8:50 PM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

CBP officer Luis Uribe allegedly used his gun and badge to rape and rob four women of Chinese-descent in the US in 2022. He allegedly raped one of them three times, tracking her between hotels.

This was his lawyer's argument for why he should be released on his own recognizance (URL in #AltText):

Excerpt from a 15 December 2025 Chicago Sun Times article titled "Border Protection officer to be held in custody while awaiting trial on sexual assault claims. U.S. Magistrate Judge Keri Holleb Hotaling peppered a defense attorney for Officer Luis Uribe with questions, telling her, 'It seems that the evidence is strong.'" by Jon Seidel:

Uribe remains employed by CBP but had been placed on desk duty before his arrest, his lawyer revealed during the Monday hearing. Authorities took Uribe into custody last Tuesday, and his attorney said he’d been “arrested at his desk.”

A Homeland Security representative did not comment. Uribe waved to supporters in the courtroom gallery before he was led away. Those supporters declined to speak with reporters before leaving the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.

While arguing for Uribe’s release, his lawyer pointed to DNA evidence, collected after an alleged attack in 2022, which turned out to be a strong match for Uribe. Uribe’s attorney argued that authorities “didn’t think he was such a danger to the community that they needed to immediately arrest him.”

[end excerpt.]

The article can be read in full at https://chicago.suntimes.com/public-safety/2025/12/15/border-protection-officer-to-be-held-in-custody-while-awaiting-trial-on-sexual-assault-claims

December 19, 2025 at 2:46 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

WaPo from today, 17 Dec 2025:

Excerpt from 17 Dec 2025 Washington Post article titled "Coast Guard enacts policy calling swastikas, nooses ‘potentially divisive’. A new workplace harassment manual that downgrades the definition of such symbols quietly went into effect this week." by Tara Copp and Michelle Boorstein:

The U.S. Coast Guard has allowed a new workplace harassment policy to take effect that downgrades the definition of swastikas and nooses from overt hate symbols to “potentially divisive” despite an uproar over the new language that forced the service’s top officer to declare that both would remain prohibited.

The new policy went into effect Monday, according to written correspondence that the Coast Guard provided to Congress this week, a copy of which was reviewed by The Washington Post. The manual is posted online and makes clear that its previous version “is cancelled.”

[end excerpt.]

The article can be read in full, archived, at https://archive.ph/Obwjc

December 17, 2025 at 1:53 PM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

I find the alt text that comes from Tenor simultaneously hilarious and appalling.

How the hell does what they used to describe the gif in image 1 give any kind of context?

Screen capture of the alt text provided on a gif by Tenor. The text reads "a close up of a man's face with large ears and a ring around his neck". The gif is of Quark, a character from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine holding up gold latinum bars. Quark is a member of the alien race known as Ferengi, who are characterized by their large ears and a philosophy of greed, enumerated in the Rules of Acquisition that they reference frequently. Ferengi have no scalp hair and the tops of their skulls have an indentation in the center aligning with the delineation of lobes in a human brain. They are humanoid in appearance. I've no idea whatsoever where Tenor came up with "a ring around his neck".

The information bar that shows up when you paste / drag / upload a supported image file type into Bluesky. It reads: "Alt text describes images for blind and low-vision users, and helps give context to everyone." Tenor's alt text is shit and gives context to no one.

December 17, 2025 at 12:05 PM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

Cosponsors are located via tab underneath the overview, so you can see whether they've signed on before contacting them.

December 17, 2025 at 10:16 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

So. Beth Van Duyne. Apparently, she's decided to try "undercover" racism.

Because we know that this is aimed at BIPOC, and specifically Black men.

It doesn't even say "convicted". Just "committed", so the accusation would be enough?

Excerpt from HR 4991, 119th Congress, 1st Session. It states:

To prohibit the disposition of a firearm to, and the possession of a firearm by, an adult who, while a juvenile who had attained 15 years of age but not 18 years of age, committed an offense that would have been a felony if committed by an adult.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
August 15, 2025

Ms. Van Duyne introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

[end excerpt.]

The bill text can be read at https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/4991/text

December 17, 2025 at 8:14 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

Maybe if it's directly mentioned to Senators/Representatives, they'd sign on as cosponsors? Hm.

Dem Senate caucus: www.democrats.senate.gov/about-senate...

Only has 13 cosponsors, so 14 of 47 signed on.

Dem House caucus: www.dems.gov/who-we-are/o...
46 of 214.

This will take a few days.

Excerpt from S 1466 at https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/1466/text :

(2) INFORMATION.—

(A) IN GENERAL.—The Advisory Council shall identify, promote, coordinate, and disseminate to the public information, resources, and best and promising practices available to help victims of gun violence—

(i) meet their medical, financial, educational, workplace, housing, transportation, assistive technology, and accessibility needs;

(ii) maintain their mental health and emotional well-being;

(iii) seek legal redress for their injuries and protection against any ongoing threats to their safety; and

(iv) access government programs, services, and benefits for which they may be eligible or to which they may be entitled.

(B) CONTACT INFORMATION.—The Advisory Council shall include in the information disseminated under subparagraph (A) the websites and telephone contact information for helplines of relevant Federal agencies, State agencies, and nonprofit organizations.

December 17, 2025 at 7:47 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

Excerpt from US Congress HR 4103 / S 2203, the “Break the Cycle of Violence Act”.
www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c..., @repstevenhorsford.bsky.social (House)
www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c..., @booker.senate.gov (Senate)

(I'm working on a list of the Dem bills intro'd re: gun violence in the 119th. 👇)

SEC. 2. Findings.

Congress finds the following:

(1) Community violence is a significant public health, public safety, and community infrastructure concern nationwide, and is a leading cause of death, injury, and trauma for people in the United States. Community violence also disrupts employment and hinders a community’s social and economic development. Today, gun violence is the leading cause of death for America’s youth.

(2) From 2010 to 2021, over 233,000 people were murdered in the United States. Hundreds of thousands more were hospitalized or treated in emergency departments after surviving life-changing gunshot injuries and other violent assaults.

(3) In 2020, the Nation suffered the largest single-year spike in homicides on record, driven largely by record spikes in fatal shootings. As of 2021, 80 percent of all homicides in the United States are committed with a gun.

(4) Communities across the Nation experience enormous disparities in safety that are driven by inequitable social and structural determinants of health. Interpersonal shootings are disproportionately concentrated in neighborhoods harmed by past and present racial discrimination, segregation, redlining, disinvestment, mass incarceration, and concentrated poverty, and this violence’s toll falls overwhelmingly on people of color, especially young Black and Brown men and boys and their loved ones. From 2015 to 2020, Black children and teens were more than 12 times as likely to be shot to death as their White peers. Hispanic children and teens and Native American children and teens were both about 2.6 times as likely to be shot to death as their White peers. Over this period, 72 percent of children murdered before their 18th birthday were people of color, and more than 50 percent were Black.

[continued next image]

(5) Black boys and men make up less than 7 percent of the population in the United States, but account for more than 50 percent of all gun homicide victims each year. Violence is responsible for nearly half of all deaths among Black boys and young men, ages 15 through 24, meaning the parents of a Black son in this age group are as likely to lose their child to homicide as nearly every other cause of death combined.

(6) This violence imposes enormous human, social, and economic consequences. Studies show that gun violence has a national economic cost of $557,000,000,000 annually. The Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Violence Prevention presented research to Congress demonstrating that “youth living in inner cities show a higher prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder than soldiers” in the Nation’s wartime military. While the vast majority of these young people resiliently persevere, people who have been victims of violence are at substantially higher risk of being violently reattacked or killed. Additionally, both direct and indirect violence exposure have been associated with a host of poor health outcomes, including chronic illness, anxiety, depression, and substance misuse.

December 17, 2025 at 7:17 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

House text: www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...
Senate text: www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

- HR 4270: Would modify US 18 § 923 (g)(3)(A) to remove the specifically enumerated weapons and replace with "firearms" to close a loophole.
Text: www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...

Just a few more for 2025.

US 18 § 923 (g)(3)(A), which reads:

Each licensee shall prepare a report of multiple sales or other dispositions whenever the licensee sells or otherwise disposes of, at one time or during any five consecutive business days, two or more pistols, or revolvers, or any combination of pistols and revolvers totalling two or more, to an unlicensed person. The report shall be prepared on a form specified by the Attorney General and forwarded to the office specified thereon and to the department of State police or State law enforcement agency of the State or local law enforcement agency of the local jurisdiction in which the sale or other disposition took place, not later than the close of business on the day that the multiple sale or other disposition occurs.

[end text.]

Available online at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/923

December 17, 2025 at 7:16 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

In fact, this regime's xenophobic and anti-science policies are setting the U.S. on a course to repeat the actions of 𝑆𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑎𝑚 𝐻𝑢𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑖𝑛, as relayed by former U.S. HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson.

And you've missed the whole point of medical / health diplomacy, the whole reason Thompson advocated for it.

Excerpt from Iglehart, John K (2004) Advocating For Medical Diplomacy: A Conversation With Tommy G. Thompson. Health Affairs 23 (S1). https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.W4.262 :

Second thing, in Iraq. What happened there was one of the most unbelievable things that happened to the medical system of any country in the world. In the early 1960s doctors in Baghdad were actually doing open-heart surgery. They were doing transplants in the 1960s. Bagdhad was a center of medical excellence for that whole region. Then Saddam Hussein came in and systematically destroyed the medical system because he was fearful of doctors. He starved it for money and resources and education, even destroyed the books. In fact, in a hospital I visited, the latest article there from the New England Journal of Medicine was, I believe, from 1998, and it had been duplicated and reduplicated and passed on among all of the doctors in Baghdad. That was the most recent thing they had to read about modern medicine.

[end excerpt.]

Article is not open access, but is available at https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.W4.262 .

December 17, 2025 at 12:11 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

because it's not profitable to you: It's called "soft diplomacy", you absolute ass.

I cannot adequately express my disgust for you.

Hell, this has been the U.S. position in the past (and this is still hosted on a U.S. government server, by the way):

Excerpt from Feldbaum H, Michaud J (2010) Health Diplomacy and the Enduring Relevance of Foreign Policy Interests. PLoS Med 7(4): e1000226. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000226 :

However, other conceptions of health diplomacy deemphasize both negotiations and the primary role of global health, instead describing efforts to improve health within the larger context of supporting state interests. For example, Fauci defines health diplomacy as ‘‘winning the hearts and minds of people in poor countries by exporting medical care, expertise and personnel to help those who need it most,’’ [9] while a former US Secretary of Health and Human Services asks, ‘‘What better way to knock down the hatred, the barriers of ethnic and religious groups that are afraid of America, and hate America, than to offer good medical policy and good health to these countries?’’ [10]

[end excerpt.]

Full article text is available at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2857879/pdf/pmed.1000226.pdf

December 17, 2025 at 12:11 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

Marco Rubio:
"Why isn't China paying more for immunizations? Why isn't the UK or Canada or any of the G7 countries?" (archive.ph/Kkiqu)

Since you are incapable of understanding compassion, human decency, as well as the ethical and moral reasons for not withholding medicine and killing people

Excerpt from Hotez PJ (2014) “Vaccine Diplomacy”: Historical Perspectives and Future Directions. PLoS Negl Trop Dis 8(6): e2808. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0002808 :

Our Sabin Vaccine Institute and Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development (Sabin), a nonprofit product development partnership (PDP) that uses industry practices to develop and test neglected disease vaccines, could occupy a key niche in vaccine diplomacy. Sabin's vaccine portfolio targets neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) that specifically affect the poorest people living in low- and middle-income countries. Because NTDs have been shown to promote poverty through their adverse effects on worker productivity, the health of girls and women, and child development, the vaccines under development at Sabin are sometimes referred to as the “antipoverty vaccines” [57], [58]. Moreover, most of the diseases targeted by the Sabin portfolio of vaccines occur in countries of direct relevance to vaccine diplomacy (Table 2) [59]. For example, more than one-third of the world's cases of hookworm infection, ascariasis, and trichuriasis occur in nations of the OIC, i.e., the world's Muslim countries (Figure 1), while almost one-half of the cases of schistosomiasis occur among the OIC countries [59].

[continued next image]

Furthermore, both cutaneous and visceral leishmaniasis have emerged as the most significant infections arising in settings of ongoing conflict, with the former affecting hundreds of thousands of people in Syria and Syrian refugees, while the latter was the leading killer in the war between northern and southern Sudan during the 1980s and 1990s [60]. Some of these diseases are also widespread in some Latin American countries where leaders have expressed varying degrees of anti-American sentiment. While Sabin is currently conducting joint vaccine development with public-sector vaccine manufacturers in Brazil and Mexico, it is ready to embark on joint vaccine development with countries such as Cuba, Indonesia, and Iran, i.e., nations with either strained or even overtly hostile foreign relations with the US in past and recent years. As a form of projecting soft power with both allies and potential adversaries, such activities are consistent with what former Secretary Hillary Clinton termed “civilian power” [24].

[end excerpt.]

Full text of article available at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0002808

December 17, 2025 at 12:11 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

Sometimes I see a post on the discover feed that infuriates me with its over simplification.

Meanwhile, here's something I found in a rabbit hole.
doi.org/10.1002/hast...

Excerpt from "The Hennepin Healthcare Forced Ketamine Studies, Excited Delirium, and Police Violence" by Carl Elliott and Lauren Wilson, Hastings Center Report 55, no. 5 (2025): 29-40. DOI: 10.1002/hast.4985 :

In 2018, reports revealed that Hennepin County Medical Center, in Minneapolis, was conducting clinical trials in which emergency medical personnel were injecting agitated individuals with ketamine without their consent and often at the urging of police. What are we to make of medical research that involves law enforcement as these trials did? How is the collapse of the diagnosis of “excited delirium” important to the ethics of these ketamine studies? And how do these studies compare to studies of chemical restraints in health care institutions and of “nonlethal” weapons deployed by the police?

Brittany Buckley was asleep on the couch when the police arrived. It was the anniversary of her father’s death, and she had been drinking all day. (1) A concerned friend had called 911 and asked for a welfare check. After a few minutes of conversation, the police called for an ambulance, and paramedics from Hennepin Healthcare told Buckley she was being taken to the hospital. When Buckley objected, she was handcuffed, carried to the ambulance, and strapped to a gurney. Then paramedics injected her with 150 mg of ketamine, a dissociative anesthetic. Within minutes, Buckley lost consciousness and began struggling to breathe.

When Buckley regained consciousness a day later, she found herself intubated and restrained on a hospital bed. Next to her bed was a document titled “Notification of Enrollment.” “You are receiving this form because you or someone you care for was included in a research study examining patients with agitation,” the document said. The study compared two drugs, ketamine and midazolam. “This is all I got,” Buckley told the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “Just this form saying that I’m part of their little test.” (2)

[continued next image]

Buckley’s experience was only part of a series of alarming revelations about medical research at Hennepin Healthcare reported by Andy Mannix of the Star Tribune in the summer of 2018. (3) The revelations were initially triggered by a leaked report from the Office of Police Conduct Review. (4) That report

[text excerpt ends.]

Full article is open access, available at https://doi.org/10.1002/hast.4985

December 16, 2025 at 12:28 PM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

Here is an example of what threaded posts look like while you're typing. You'll notice your profile image / icon will appear next to each of the posts in the thread.

Anyway, hope that helps you when creating threads for the future. Cheers, and good luck with your campaign!

9/9

Demonstration of two threaded Bluesky posts before they are posted. The first reads "So to thread a post you type what you want to be in the first one." This post is greyed out.

Beneath it is a second post reading "Then you click the plus icon to create the next one. The first one will appear greyed out, to help you determine which post you're typing in." This one has brighter text, and an "x" is visible in the upper right hand corner next to the top line of text for this post. Selecting it would bring up a confirmation window, and would only remove this post if confirmed; the prior post would remain.

December 16, 2025 at 9:01 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

And finally, at the bottom of each post is the character counter. Bluesky posts have an individual limit of 300. I don't know if there's a thread limit for number of posts or not; I haven't reached or seen one yet as far as I can recall.

8/9

The character counter for an individual post located at the bottom of every post on Bluesky when you are the one creating it. It has the number 300, showing the remaining available characters, and a grey circle to the right of the number. The number decreases with each character typed or emoji used, since emojis count as characters. When accessing via desktop, this appears on the far right side of the bottom of the post.

The Bluesky post counter showing 83 characters remaining. As you type, the grey circle becomes blue.

The character counter showing a -1 in red with the circle in red and a line from the center of the circle to the edge. This line will gradually proceed around the circle to fill it up should you continue to type. Posts that have a red character counter cannot be posted and the "Post", "Post All", or "Reply" buttons will be greyed out until the character limit of the individual posts is below 300.

December 16, 2025 at 9:01 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

To the right of the plus sign icon and the left of the character counter is the language selection. It defaults to what you've selected for your account. Clicking/Tapping it will allow you to select other languages. Selecting "More languages" on that popup will bring up another.

7/9

The language selected for the post, located on the bottom of every post on Bluesky when you are the one creating it. It will appear to the right of the plus sign icon and to the left of the character counter when accessing Bluesky via desktop. In this case, the language indicated is English.

December 16, 2025 at 9:01 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

To add posts in a thread, like I've done here, you can click the plus (+) icon. It only appears in the post once you've typed at least one character, or pasted/dragged a supported file type into the post. Emojis count as characters, so choosing one of those will also make the icon visible.

6/9

Plus sign icon, located on the bottom of every post on Bluesky when you are the one creating it, once you have typed at least one character into the post, or have uploaded a supported file type into the post, or have chosen at least one emoji. When accessing from desktop, the icon is the third item from the right edge on the bottom of the post.

The bottom of every post on Bluesky when you are the one creating it. On the left are the File Upload, GIF, and emoji icons. To the right is the word "English" and the number 300 with a greyed out circle beside it. No plus sign is visible because there are no characters yet in the post.

December 16, 2025 at 9:01 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

The icon that looks like a smiley face is for choosing emojis. If you aren't sure about using them, don't feel you need to. They can both enhance and detract from a conversation.

5/9

The emoji icon located at the bottom of every post on Bluesky when you are the one creating it. It is a circle with two vertical lines for eyes and a semicircle for a smile. When using a desktop to access Bluesky, it is the third icon on the left at the bottom of the post being created.

December 16, 2025 at 9:01 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

The icon that says GIF in the center will bring up a popup that has preloaded GIFs. These are made available through the website Tenor. You can search them for associated terms via the search bar at the top.

As a warning, Tenor's #AltText sucks, so you'll want to change it.

4/9

Screen capture of the alt text provided by Tenor on a GIF of Elmo leaning his head back and shouting. In the GIF, the text "Alaska!" appears on the left as he leans back to shout.

The text provided by Tenor reads "elmo from sesame street is standing in front of a checkered tablecloth ." which misses the whole point of the GIF.

Also of note: the character limit counter says 1915; this is because pictures on Bluesky are worth 2,000 characters.

December 16, 2025 at 9:01 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

The icon that looks like a hill with a sun inside a frame is the File Upload icon.

Clicking/Tapping this icon will open a popup window to the files on your device so you can choose one to upload.

If you have files you want to include in your posts, you can also just drag and drop them.

3/9

The File Upload icon located at the bottom of every post on Bluesky when you are the one creating it. It is square in shape and looks like a frame of a picture showing a squiggly horizontal line that could represent a mountain or hill, with a circle in the upper third on the right that could be the sun or moon. On the desktop version of Bluesky, it is the first icon on the left at the bottom of a post being created.

December 16, 2025 at 9:01 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

Excerpt of a news article from the 16 Feb 1935 Washington Daily News, page 1:

Formaldehyde Given Patient Thru Error, Coroner's Jury Told.
Paraldehyde Was Prescribed, Inquest Hears; Young Woman Bears Child, Dies Later.

Formaldehyde, a caustic acid, instead of the prescribed paraldehyde was in a solution given to Mrs. Ruth Loomis, an expectant mother at George Washington University Hospital, a coroner's jury heard today. She died at the hospital Feb. 12, nine days later, after giving birth to a baby which is living.

Paraldehyde is the major component of a solution used in child birth. Formaldehyde is a burning irritant and can never be so used.

[end excerpt.]

Article can be read in full at:
page 1: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82016181/1935-02-16/ed-1/?sp=1
page 8: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn82016181/1935-02-16/ed-1/?sp=8

December 15, 2025 at 6:18 AM

Elizabeth Reads Serially

@elizabethreadsser.bsky.social

Also, please note that US government has still posted this on the NIH site: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/ins... It's from 1899. A lovely key passage:

As bearing on the question of the toxic possibilities of formaldehyde
the following observations may be introduced:

In the experience of a large number of experimenters and public health officers the inhalation of formaldehyde in ordinary doses, or in the case of animals in large doses, has appeared to be harmless in its results, or productive of no serious harm. This, however, has not uniformly been the case. Dr. Charles Harrington, (2) speaking of the results produced by formaldehyde gas on two rabbits used in his experiments, says that they were sufficiently certain to demonstrate the falsity of the theory that formaldehyde exerts no deleterious act on higher organisms and to render further experiments on his part in this direction unnecessary. Dr. Brough, (3) referring to the results of his investigations for the municipal board of health of Boston, says: "Dogs and cats which have been left in rooms were found killed."

Mosse and Paoletti stated that: "Intravascular injection profoundly modifies the blood, so that hemoglobin passes out from the corpuscles into the plasma. The blood-vessels contract when in contact with formaldehyde, their walls being altered, and their corpuscular elements escaping into the tissues. These points were ascertained by experiments on the renal circulation." A. H. Pilliet states that: "To cause fatal results it must be given subcutaneously in doses of 0.25 gramme per kilogram of body-weight. The lesions consisted principally of intense congestion, with evidence of cellular irritation and vacuolization, but no necrosis. These conditions were noted generally in the stomach, intestines, kidney, liver, spleen, and suprarenal corpuscles." (4)

December 15, 2025 at 5:34 AM

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