TED
@epicureandealmaker.bsky.social
“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.” – H.L. Mencken
My blog in desuetude: https://epicureandealmaker.blogspot.com
My blog in desuetude: https://epicureandealmaker.blogspot.com
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TED
@epicureandealmaker.bsky.social
· Feb 14
With all due respect to Cavafy, it now seems clear that the barbarians were a really bad kind of solution.
😑
The recent Epstein emails have badly damaged Donald Trump’s credibility
November 14, 2025 at 1:36 PM
😑
Reposted by TED
Republicans are trying to raid the government in every way they can because they know the good times won’t last much longer.
November 14, 2025 at 1:03 AM
Republicans are trying to raid the government in every way they can because they know the good times won’t last much longer.
Reposted by TED
NEW: The first two years of Massachusetts' millionaire tax has raised $3 billion more than expected.
And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.*
Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:
And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.*
Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:
Millionaire Tax That Inspired Mamdani Fuels $5.7 Billion Haul in Massachusetts
A millionaire levy in Massachusetts that New York City mayoral frontrunner Zohran Mamdani holds up as a model for taxing the rich has generated $3 billion more in revenue than expected without forcing...
www.bloomberg.com
November 12, 2025 at 4:01 PM
NEW: The first two years of Massachusetts' millionaire tax has raised $3 billion more than expected.
And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.*
Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:
And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.*
Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:
Reposted by TED
Give a man a fish and someone with a thousand fishes is going to bitch about people getting free handouts. Teach a man to fish? Yeah, that person with a thousand fishes is going to bitch about that too.
November 14, 2025 at 1:28 AM
Give a man a fish and someone with a thousand fishes is going to bitch about people getting free handouts. Teach a man to fish? Yeah, that person with a thousand fishes is going to bitch about that too.
Gotta wag the dog
>get blown the fuck out in elections due to the state of the economy
>everyone is yelling at you about Epstein again
>your entire foreign policy is floundering and erratic
Errrr…uhhhh…we should uh….start a new conflict?
>everyone is yelling at you about Epstein again
>your entire foreign policy is floundering and erratic
Errrr…uhhhh…we should uh….start a new conflict?
"Senior military officials on Wednesday presented President Trump with updated options for potential operations in Venezuela, including strikes on land, according to multiple sources familiar with the meetings at the White House. "
November 13, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Gotta wag the dog
Seeing Treasury police in body armor rappelling from Black Hawk helicopters onto the roof of Mar a Lago would heal a lot of psychological damage to the American people.
"Fuck moving forward. Screw coming together. We are going to hire a team of prosecutors so large it needs its own building, fund them so well they have their own helicopters, and instruct them to go after everyone who broke the law from the White House to individual ICE agents."
i’ve said this before and i remain convinced it’s true, the 2028 platform that would deliver obama 08 results is “i am gonna
bring the hammer down on the corrupt self-dealing politicians and their rich friends and there are no sacred cows id give a pass”
bring the hammer down on the corrupt self-dealing politicians and their rich friends and there are no sacred cows id give a pass”
November 13, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Seeing Treasury police in body armor rappelling from Black Hawk helicopters onto the roof of Mar a Lago would heal a lot of psychological damage to the American people.
Reposted by TED
The Republican president is a pedophile who has doubled my healthcare costs and let scores of violent criminals out of jail. But a Democratic mayor-elect wants to make busses free in a city I don't live in. I have never felt more politically homeless.
November 13, 2025 at 12:47 PM
The Republican president is a pedophile who has doubled my healthcare costs and let scores of violent criminals out of jail. But a Democratic mayor-elect wants to make busses free in a city I don't live in. I have never felt more politically homeless.
Reposted by TED
This isn’t even the stuff they’re trying to actually stop from getting out.
November 12, 2025 at 10:59 PM
This isn’t even the stuff they’re trying to actually stop from getting out.
The funny thing about this Epstein email dump is that there seems to be so much material on so many wealthy and powerful people and institutions that they are *competing* to release and highlight dirt on others to distract from the dirt on themselves. This is a great way to find out *everything*.
November 13, 2025 at 5:45 AM
The funny thing about this Epstein email dump is that there seems to be so much material on so many wealthy and powerful people and institutions that they are *competing* to release and highlight dirt on others to distract from the dirt on themselves. This is a great way to find out *everything*.
Reposted by TED
choosing to believe that if elon isnt in the epstein files very frequently its because the pedophile cabal also found him annoying
November 12, 2025 at 10:03 PM
choosing to believe that if elon isnt in the epstein files very frequently its because the pedophile cabal also found him annoying
Reposted by TED
In a demoralizing world it does warm the heart to see an eighty seven year-old lady repeatedly burn the world’s richest man to a crisp in a manner that clearly gets right under his skin and provokes him to flailing, compensatory exertions that only affirm the point she was making.
November 11, 2025 at 1:04 PM
In a demoralizing world it does warm the heart to see an eighty seven year-old lady repeatedly burn the world’s richest man to a crisp in a manner that clearly gets right under his skin and provokes him to flailing, compensatory exertions that only affirm the point she was making.
I would pay real money to see this woman knife fight Pussy Pete in a cage match. She’d carve him into quivering strips.
The first woman nominated to lead the Naval Special Warfare command overseeing Navy SEALs had her promotion abruptly canceled — and military sources blame Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's hostility to women in combat roles.
www.rawstory.com/pete-hegseth...
www.rawstory.com/pete-hegseth...
SEALs flatten 'weak' Hegseth as elite captain's career ruined because she's female: report
The first woman nominated to lead the Naval Special Warfare command overseeing Navy SEALs had her promotion abruptly canceled — and military sources blame Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's hostility to...
www.rawstory.com
November 11, 2025 at 11:02 PM
I would pay real money to see this woman knife fight Pussy Pete in a cage match. She’d carve him into quivering strips.
What is this bullshit? If this is how you learned to read, just send me all your money and a power of attorney, and I—a hyper-literate sonofabitch who has read above grade level since I was an embryo—will just run your pathetic life for you. Sheesh. 🙄 www.apmreports.org/episode/2019...
How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers
For decades, schools have taught children the strategies of struggling readers, using a theory about reading that cognitive scientists have repeatedly debunked. And many teachers and parents don't kno...
www.apmreports.org
November 11, 2025 at 10:25 PM
What is this bullshit? If this is how you learned to read, just send me all your money and a power of attorney, and I—a hyper-literate sonofabitch who has read above grade level since I was an embryo—will just run your pathetic life for you. Sheesh. 🙄 www.apmreports.org/episode/2019...
Derek Guy leans his head in. “Need one more?”
Joyce Carol Oates sitting across a desk from Kendrick Lamar:
"So I'm putting a team together..."
Isaac Chotiner knocks on the open door.
"So I'm putting a team together..."
Isaac Chotiner knocks on the open door.
Personally, I will be trying to avoid the notice of Joyce Carol Oates and Kendrick Lamar for the rest of my natural life
November 11, 2025 at 7:37 PM
Derek Guy leans his head in. “Need one more?”
Honestly, sacrificing Alex Karp on a funeral pyre is an excellent notion, IMO.
November 11, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Honestly, sacrificing Alex Karp on a funeral pyre is an excellent notion, IMO.
I suspect he makes a great deal of money now from substacking and this has convinced him that he is incapable of error.
Noah Smith is paid in the high six-figures to write a blog read by Americans who believe themselves to be intelligent. Yet, he is both unable to read a sign and also for some reason chose to have a 90 minute layover for a flight that takes 90 minutes.
onemileatatime.com/news/economi...
onemileatatime.com/news/economi...
Economist Doesn't Follow Signs At Heathrow: Proof The UK Is Failing?
A economist had a bad experience connecting at Heathrow, suggesting it's reflective of bigger issues in the UK. There's only one issue...
onemileatatime.com
November 11, 2025 at 4:07 PM
I suspect he makes a great deal of money now from substacking and this has convinced him that he is incapable of error.
This is hilarious.
November 11, 2025 at 3:33 PM
This is hilarious.
You have my vote, Sir. 🫡
I’m running for President as single issue candidate - ripping out every single solitary piece of gold plastic garbage from the White House and razing his ballroom on day one.
November 11, 2025 at 3:31 PM
You have my vote, Sir. 🫡
Reposted by TED
A little piece of good news. There will have to be more like this: institutions of civil society, academia, and expertise separating from the state.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/u...
Dismantled by DOGE, a Foreign Policy Center Finds New Life
www.nytimes.com
November 11, 2025 at 11:58 AM
A little piece of good news. There will have to be more like this: institutions of civil society, academia, and expertise separating from the state.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/u...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/10/u...
Reposted by TED
To all you holists in the ontological slums that are the special sciences. Here's your Bill Wimsatt quote for today. It's a long one, but worth parsing in detail, so you can embrace "the new messiness," which, really, has always been there; we've just been ignoring it at times…
November 11, 2025 at 12:12 PM
To all you holists in the ontological slums that are the special sciences. Here's your Bill Wimsatt quote for today. It's a long one, but worth parsing in detail, so you can embrace "the new messiness," which, really, has always been there; we've just been ignoring it at times…
Conceptually, the “world models” approach sounds like a more promising path toward true artificial intelligence than LLMs, but even then I wonder how one can accomplish that without embodiment and neural plasticity. @yann-lecun.bsky.social
Breaking news: Meta’s chief artificial intelligence scientist Yann LeCun, a Turing Award winner who is considered one of the pioneers of modern AI, has told associates he will leave the Silicon Valley group in the coming months. on.ft.com/4ozjBGl
November 11, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Conceptually, the “world models” approach sounds like a more promising path toward true artificial intelligence than LLMs, but even then I wonder how one can accomplish that without embodiment and neural plasticity. @yann-lecun.bsky.social
Joyce Carol Oates: “So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates he enjoys or is even aware of… a book.”
Random X book bot: “Post your favorite book.”
Elon Musk: “Great book.”
Random X book bot: “Post your favorite book.”
Elon Musk: “Great book.”
November 10, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Joyce Carol Oates: “So curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates he enjoys or is even aware of… a book.”
Random X book bot: “Post your favorite book.”
Elon Musk: “Great book.”
Random X book bot: “Post your favorite book.”
Elon Musk: “Great book.”
“Let them eat eggs.”
COLLINS: When Trump says grocery prices are down, what numbers is he basing that off given it's not true?
HASSETT: Inflation is down
C: But grocery prices are up
H: Not everything. Egg prices are down. Why haven't you covered egg prices?
C: We certainly have. But grocery prices are up about 1.4%
HASSETT: Inflation is down
C: But grocery prices are up
H: Not everything. Egg prices are down. Why haven't you covered egg prices?
C: We certainly have. But grocery prices are up about 1.4%
November 10, 2025 at 9:35 PM
“Let them eat eggs.”