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brike

@brike.bsky.social
114 followers 359 following 158 posts

“And after all this the LORD smote him in his bowels with an incurable disease.”

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brike @brike.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
important view, but underplays seriousness of 1) unexplained cancer crisis and 2) food additives (like titanium dioxide) that more sensible countries ban and we don’t. i have to pretend not to care about those b/c some bad people care? (might start posting like this to record thought, avoid arg.)
somebody’s post about clean food, air, medicine, and water.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Sky full of frigate birds above Pasadena this afternoon. (Pinellas County FL.)
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
leucistic rock pigeon or homing pigeon? someone’s lost pet?
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
is this white bird an albino mourning dove? seen today in & near a library in pinellas county, fl. #birds
white dove-like bird walking inside a building, looking at a windowwhite dove-like bird in the hands of a librarianwhite dove-like bird near a bench outside the library
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
oh this is wonderful
A Schopenhauer parable about porcupines, from a director’s note on the We The Economy website about the Lemonade film. 

"On a cold winter's day, a group of porcupines huddled together to stay warm and keep from freezing. But soon they felt one another's quills and moved apart. When the need for warmth brought them closer together again, their quills again forced them apart. They were driven back and forth at the mercy of their discomforts until they found the distance from one another that provided both a maximum of warmth and a minimum of pain. In human beings, the emptiness and monotony of the isolated self produces a need for society. This brings people together, but their many offensive qualities and intolerable faults drive them apart again. The optimum distance that they finally find that permits them to coexist is embodied in politeness and good manners. Because of this distance between us, we can only partially satisfy our need for warmth, but at the same time, we are spared the stab of one another's quills." - Arthur Schopenhauer
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
This is a good joke
Jimmy Kimmel telling a joke about the ballroomThe punchline
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
this is how you honk the horn so people get out of the way
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
Wu Jintu and Hu Jintao Have rarely shared a line, till now; Now Hu Jintao and Wu Jintu Have shared not just one line, but two
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
This is wonderful - thank you. The booklet is available at Project Gutenberg!
Title page of ARE YOU A BROMIDE? from Project Gutenberg
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
awesome. she made them pick up the pace!
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 28/03/2026
No Kings! St Pete, Tyrone by 66th st.
crowd holding signs and American flags at a no kings protest
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
this happened in safed once i heard
“and in walks a turkey” highlighted on a page of text from the story “whence a proverb,” by i.l. peretz, collected in “yiddish tales” (translated by helena frank, published 1912 by jps, project gutenberg digital edition).
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
“the fact that the hornets are stinging you just underscores the need for president trump to kick the nest in the first place.”
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Seems important to ask. So many schoolgirls dead because they got it wrong.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
None of those fired professionals would have had the wisdom or authority to ask if the intel was outdated?
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Pitch an unnecessary sequel. My Second Cousin Vinny
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
In my junior year in college, long ago, I misused the word ‘discern’ in just this way, in an essay. I’ll never forget the sting I felt reading the learned professor’s red-ink correction. The word I wanted was ‘distinguish.’ To become less ignorant can be a painful blessing.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
There are mentshen in that mansion!
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
Adding to my reading list. It’s available on Internet Archive :)
Title page of Secret agent of Japan by Amleto Vespa, published by Victor Gollancz Ltd (London) 1938
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
i feel like this exchange took a wrong turn here. the question raised earlier is whether the technology is dangerous, not whether the companies are sound. if the companies all go bankrupt and the code & assets are bought up at firesale prices, the tech does not become less dangerous.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Cover me in blubber, baby, cover me in tar Hoist that harpoon to your shoulder, throw it straight and far Let’s go brave the stormy seas Does the captain have two knees?
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Call me (call me!) Ishmael I’m your buddy, let’s go get that whale. Call me (call me!) Ishmael Full of parmacetti and he’s pale. Call me.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
true i hope, but by what mechanisms? if johnson says he’s still speaker and 200+ holdover republicans in the room say they’re still reps and “pass laws,” what stops them? the police, the courts, the senate, staff, protestors, bad poll numbers… probably in combo that stops them. but eye on the ball.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
What is SALUTE, please, for the uninformed? When I search for it all I see is Elon’s Nazi gesture.
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Ezra Levin ❌👑 @ezralevin.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
On the eve of 1000+ rapid response "Ice Out for Good" protests, here's our generation's phil ochs/bob dylan/john prine/you get the idea. www.youtube.com/watch?v=El0C...
youtube.com
Good vs. Ice
YouTube video by Jesse Welles
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 03/01/2026
update: i finally read this wonderful book. i didn’t know about the after-catastrophes (génocidaires hide in, & stage further killings from, international aid-funded camps on the border). the interviews w paul kagame are extensive and amazing. grateful to gourevitch & his team & sources.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
fair enough…but most venues don’t have their name established by law.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
“bandage the orifices to keep in any remaining breath”
a page from hilary spurling’s book “pearl buck in china: journey to the good earth.” after a girl hangs herself, buck witnesses a group “cut the body down and bandage the orifices to keep in any remaining breath.”
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Jeremy Goldkorn @goldkorn.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
I did a Q&A with Violet Feng on her new film:
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
one stray fact: one of the names/ssn’s this immigrant bought belonged to a guy under an income deduction order. the immigrant wound up paying the guy’s overdue child support(!)
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
this article is amazing. (yes, i too have nearly canceled my nytimes subscription many times.) Two Men. One Identity. They Both Paid the Price. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/u...
nytimes.com
Two Men. One Identity. They Both Paid the Price.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
(giving chemo infusions, doing surgeries) to preserve my life. and those people were housed and fed and kept safe and healthy by others… and grateful for the world, which gave us water. there’s something special about water.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
i just swam for the first time in a very long time. feeling grateful for people, who made this moment possible. people, organized in groups, built this pool and maintain and guard it. people did the science and passed on the knowledge and learned to take and then took the steps…
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Wajahat Ali @wajali.bsky.social · 21/11/2025
Keep this story in the news. "Man Detained by ICE Found Dead, Hanging With Hands and Feet Tied—Attorney" www.newsweek.com/ice-detainee...
newsweek.com
Man detained by ICE found dead, hanging with hands and feet tied—attorney
The Chinese national died in Pennsylvania in August, but his family's requests for answers from DHS have gone unmet.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
I’m Ozyman! Who are you? Are you - Mandias - too? Then we’ve a pair of legs! No trunk! Our visage lies - in sand! Our sneering - passions - yet survive! Our pedestal does say - “Despair, you Nobodies” - the Sands - Stretch level far away!
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
I can never remember if I was drugged in the Epstein Ballroom, or balled in the Epstein Drugroom.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
From the No Kings protest in St Pete (Pinellas County) Florida this morning. Good energy. Large crowd along Tyrone Boulevard near 66th Street. Road traffic full of honking and thumbs-ups, including many heavy-duty trucks. That was a highlight - I did not know so many of them were on our side.
Three people in inflatable frog costumes and a couple of American flags. In the background, people holding protest signs. Blue sky, palms and other trees.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 03/10/2025
i take jay’s side on this one; i read how i like. i think samuel johnson (1709-1784, and one of the great readers of the english-speaking world) would agree, and dispute the point about algorithms. screenshots are from boswell’s life of johnson (1791).
Mr. Elphinston talked of a new book that was much admired, and asked Dr. Johnson if he had read it. JOHNSON.
'I have looked into it.' 'What, (said Elphinston,) have you not read it through?' Johnson, offended at being thus pressed, and so obliged to own his cursory mode of reading, answered tartly,
'No, Sir, do YOU read books THROUGH?'
He said, 'if a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it, to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.'
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 24/09/2025
some shit it makes up is funny. nabokov might have appreciated this misattribution:
AI result from Google claiming that Nabokov’s playful quote "ne manque pas de dire à ton amant, Chimène, comme le lac est beau car il faut qu'il t'y mène" is from Le Cid by Pierre Corneille.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
Remarkable how the tone of the New York Times has changed.
NYTimes headline “Trump Uses U.N. Speech to Make False Claims and Lecture World Leaders” from online front page, with image of a deranged, exhausted, and rotten-orange-peel-looking trump speaking at the UN.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
that said, here’s a real howler from yesterday (for the nabokov and corneille fans out there):
AI Overview from google claiming that the quote "ne manque pas de dire à ton amant, Chimène, comme le lac est beau car il faut qu'il t'y mène" is from the play Le Cid by Pierre Corneille.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 22/09/2025
i agree. also talking to a younger version of yourself (“answer as if you were me at age 35”). and modeling good behavior. “the four of us just had a fight at the dinner table…play that scene back to us, showing each of us being 10% calmer, gentler, and more generous.”
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
“The case against Homan is no stronger than the case against Epstein.“
Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said in a statement on Saturday that the investigation "was subjected to a full review by F.B.I. agents and Justice Department prosecutors. They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing."
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
One year ago today! Happy Tom Homan Takes a $50,000 Bribe From Undercover FBI Agents On Camera Day!
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
the deep state keeps making me accept bribes.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
“I hereby pardon myself for all crimes, including the one I am hereby committing.”
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Dave Lee @davelee.me · 19/09/2025
Dutch late night TV has its take
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
There are things we’re not allowed to talk about. And there are things we’re not allowed to talk about not being allowed to talk about.
Donald Rumsfeld in his “known unknowns and unknown unknowns” days.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
Agreed - an absurd and pretextual response. If I put myself in MAGA shoes, what I’m mad at is the humiliation Kimmel served on my big man. That deadpan “he’s at the fourth stage of grieving: construction,” coming after that video clip, is both devastating and funny.
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brike @brike.bsky.social · 14/09/2025
he wants to piss in every corner of the house before he leaves
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