Empty Bag of Ducks📎
banner
emptybagofducks.bsky.social
Empty Bag of Ducks📎
@emptybagofducks.bsky.social
Ex-Army officer. Retired Fed civil service/SES. Historian. Battling advanced metastatic bile duct cancer. Hoya. Diehard Packer fan. Fighting the dying of the light, the dying of liberal democracy and the death of the American Republic.
Read Theory

“In each case the United States intervened to prevent what was called “anarchy.” Often intervention made things worse…”
January 4, 2026 at 12:06 AM
The Return of Dollar Diplomacy. “In each case the United States intervened to prevent what was called “anarchy.” Often intervention made things worse…”
January 3, 2026 at 10:29 PM
Just a reminder
January 3, 2026 at 10:24 PM
Read Theory
January 3, 2026 at 10:23 PM
My own umbilical cord. I was a preemie. They lost my pulse immediately after I was born. Resuscitated. Emergency baptism and given last rites.

My whole life has been gravy.

cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thu...
January 2, 2026 at 4:39 AM
My college roommate‘s dad gets transferred from San Francisco (home of extended family as well) to Wichita as an 8th grader. He despised Wichita. One year for Christmas I bought him this shirt.

encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn...
December 30, 2025 at 4:16 AM
My project as I sat in my infusion chair today getting chemo. They frame and hang these in the waiting areas.
December 22, 2025 at 8:23 PM
My first build was Chris’s Roubio done mainly with hand tools I had restored. Repurposed some Lee Valley vises. Yes, I’m a lefty!
October 21, 2025 at 4:56 AM
Headlines like these are why the love and support of my friends and family are the only things making this shitty fight with cancer worthwhile. Not this stupid shit.
July 14, 2025 at 11:27 PM
Not this defilement of the Army motto
June 11, 2025 at 12:22 AM
As a young Army officer I bought a complete set of these because I thought these were worth fighting for and defending
June 11, 2025 at 12:20 AM
I wish the man who never served would stop screwing with those who did. Meanwhile, for those U.S. service members fighting in the Pacific - like my three uncles - victory would come not on May 8, but on August 14, 1945

cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thu...
May 3, 2025 at 12:16 AM
I’ve got some reading for Milo. Spoiler Alert: Factory work isn’t scintillating or satisfying.
April 5, 2025 at 4:22 PM
So ok, they made it appear like something appropriate by invoking price elasticity.
cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thu...
April 3, 2025 at 2:29 AM
I wish they would get the premise of a movement rooted in lived historical experience. This is why they erase that history to align the past to their beliefs.
March 24, 2025 at 11:51 PM
March 21, 2025 at 11:57 PM
Norwich Terrier fans of the world unite!
March 15, 2025 at 1:30 AM
I know Trump wants to take us back to the 1890s, but can we skip the company towns?
March 14, 2025 at 12:34 AM
When I was Senior Executive Service member, my staff had to shoe horn in time for “correspondence/lunch” into my calendar. Sometimes, it was as little as 15 minutes.

Musk doesn’t seem that busy.
February 23, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Oh yeah, you mean this kind of help?
February 17, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Small detail first: Current administration doesn’t have a published NDS yet. They have to write a National Security Strategy first.

Second, this is um, like normal language every budget cycle. Like, if it’s not in the NDS you shouldn’t be doing it.
February 15, 2025 at 3:06 AM
Just gonna put this up for no particular reason.
February 15, 2025 at 12:37 AM
Josh Rogin: “Multiple lawmakers here in Munich told me the U.S. Congressional delegation presented Zelensky with a piece of paper they wanted him to sign which would grant the U.S. rights to 50% of Ukraine's future mineral reserves. Zelensky politely declined to sign it.”

We’ll always have Munich.
February 14, 2025 at 6:49 PM
February 14, 2025 at 6:38 PM
I know my Military Ethics class was forty years ago, but they drew bright lines between legal and illegal orders.
February 9, 2025 at 4:52 PM