Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Davis X. Machina

@ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social

640 followers 370 following 4.8K posts

Curmudgeon. Retired pedagogue. Lapsed philologist. Maneiac. Likes: Sparrows. bridges, cardboard boxes, curtain rods Dislikes: Most everything else. All power to the soviets of car dealers and regional vice presidents!

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · May 25

Decoration Day tomorrow.

Remember the reason for the season...

Detail of Augustus St. Gaudens memorial for Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts (Colored) Regiment on Beacon Hill in Boston.
Bronze relief of Black infantrymen on the march. One of the figures has had someone place a bouquet in the crook of the elbow of an infantyrman with a shouldered musket.

4 17

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 1h

At least there actually were anti-Masons

Anti-Masonic Party - Wikipedia share.google/Mh2IeWWbkj1f...

Anti-Masonic Party - Wikipedia

share.google

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 2h

Annunciation House has been beefing with Paxton for years and the bishop has been right there with them.

elpasomatters.org/2025/05/30/s...

Texas Supreme Court sides with AG Ken Paxton in efforts to get records from El Paso’s Annunciation House

The Texas attorney general won a significant victory in his efforts to get records from the Annunciation House shelter network.

elpasomatters.org

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 5h

States may allow charging on an information, without a GJ indictment. Don't know about IL.

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 5h

"Me no gustan los caudillos, pero esto caudillo....,"

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 5h

i dunno, Micah, what if yelling at them for caving is, you know, my brand?

This is a big ask.

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 6h

a lot of Obama 2008 small donors were basically buying indulgences.

1 2

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 6h

'Can't see it from my house' in evening dress...

John Donne's ghost should have risen from its tomb and throttled the bitch.

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 6h

...and I don't know how you change that

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 6h

There is no 'public'. You can't do social provision if there's no society. There are no public goods if there's no public.

Individuals, family, Volk. That's it.

Half the political nation - are working from first principles equally divorced from our first principles, and from reality....

1 1 5

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 6h

I think foreclosing any possibility of anything like the 1974 Carnation Revolution is very wise and can't possibly boomerang.

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 7h

"No Kings" in other words.

An inspired choice.

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 7h

I feel like I woke up in 1957.

I was born in 1957. I heard people talk about Communism like this when I was ten years old... By then McCarthy had been dead for a decade.

By Reagan's time the conflict was clearly over geopolitics and not ideology.

How's about we don't do the time warp again?

1 2 4

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 7h

This is a good thing because it means we'll basically never run out of things to fight about and that ensures a long life and a bright future for this community.

After we get rid of everyone who keeps bringing us Wrong Rocks, of course..

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 7h

The number of Wrong Rocks is the set of all rocks minus one. That's a large number.

And there's only one process by which the rightness or wrongness of any rock can be discerned. It happens at most every second year.

The rightness or wrongness of any given rock cannot be discerned ex ante. 1/2

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 8h

The message is "No one is safe" just in case you were thinking doubleplus ungood thoughts about sanctuary and underground railways and things along those lines.
.

2 17

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 8h

Getting in the way of an ICE bullet is a kind of interfering with an officer in performance of their duty, if you think about it.

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 8h

s/more/mortem/g

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 8h

There is no 'public'. You can't do social provision if there's no society. There are no public goods if there's no public.

Individuals, family, Volk. That's it

She - and half the political nation - are working from first principles equally divorced from our first principles, and from reality.

1 15

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 8h

Texas has all those embedded organelles with their own gene lines, like the mitochondria in a cell.

It's really remarkable m

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 8h

The choice we were not offered is the one that would have won.

"This rock, or the Wrong Rock?"

So every election post more.

1 1 3

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 8h

You have to admire the keen and penetrating intellect it takes to figure out "I find 'not following the rules' to be an inestimable advantage to my firm."

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 9h

It's self-evidently effective.
It didn't work.
So they didn't do it.

QED

Things have to make sense. Things have to be made to make sense. Even if they don't. Especially if they don't..

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 9h

The prosecution is losing in a non-adversarial process. No one presents a defense.

In other words the prosecution is losing in pre-game batting practice.

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 9h

It's self-evidently effective.
It didn't work.
So they didn't do it.

QED

Things have to make sense. Things have to be made to make sense. Even if they don't. Especially if they don't..

Davis X. Machina @ogdavisxmachina.bsky.social · 20h

He hath encompassed evil of the King!