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Columella Stan Account

@bunnycoloredhat.bsky.social
239 followers 49 following 74 posts

Casually pointing out that even ancient Greek and Roman elites hated conspicuous consumption

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Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Haaretz's detailed story on the Israeli gulags, in which nearly 10,000 Palestinians are held, vast majority of them have not been charged or convicted. These are crimes against humanity. archive.ph/LdVXQ
archive.ph
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Center for International Policy @cipolicy.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
CIP President and CEO @nancyokail.bsky.social says the Trump admin's sanctions on the ICC are "the broadest attack yet on the one permanent tribunal able to prosecute war crimes, genocide and other crimes against humanity." Read the full statement here: internationalpolicy.org/publications...
internationalpolicy.org
Trump’s Sanctions on the ICC are an Assault on Justice & Security Everywhere - CIP
US Members of Congress should unequivocally condemn Trump's sanctioning of the International Criminal Court.
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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 09/10/2026
A Tennessee appellate court has ruled that the killing of a woman may have been justifiable because she was trans. The court reversed a conviction, stating that the killer could have a new trial because the jury did not know the woman killed was trans. Trans panic in the modern era.
erininthemorning.com
Killing of Woman May Have Been Justifiable Because She Was Trans, Tennessee Court Rules
The case is a bitter reminder of the ways LGBTQ people have had their identities weaponized by the courts in the past, most notoriously through a legal defense tactic known as gay or trans “panic.”
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 07/10/2026
In Wisconsin alone, there were 39 private schools where every student used tuition vouchers during the most recent school year. Together, these schools educated 7,923 children and took in roughly $87 million from the voucher program. (Published August)
propublica.org
At “Quasi-Public” Private Schools, 100% of Students Get Tuition Vouchers. There’s Almost No Accountability.
Private schools — even those that are heavily dependent on taxpayer funding — often operate without the scrutiny public schools are subject to. Following the money at one Milwaukee private school reve...
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Ken Schwencke @schwanksta.com · 06/10/2026
A year ago, @propublica.org told you immigration agents had detained more than 170 U.S. citizens. We’ve updated our count, and we’ve got all the receipts. The tally: At least 506 citizens detained. Sometimes held at gunpoint, handcuffed, or even deported. projects.propublica.org/american-cit...
projects.propublica.org
More Than 500 U.S. Citizens Have Been Detained, Including Handcuffed or Held at Gunpoint, in Trump’s Immigration Crackdown — ProPublica
The government doesn’t track how often immigration officers detain U.S. citizens. So ProPublica did. We’ve found more than 500 Americans who were held against their will during this Trump administrati...
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#StupidSuez @diplomatofnight.com · 01/10/2026
Less than two days later it is reported that the USG will be waiving human rights conditions requirements on $320,000,000 in military assistance for Egypt "in light of Cairo's "helpful role" since the launch of the US ‌war with Iran".
reuters.com
EXCLUSIVE: US waives rights conditions for $320 million in military aid to Egypt, letter shows
The US State Department has waived human rights conditions for ​more than $300 million of military aid to Egypt in light of Cairo's "helpful role" since the launch of the US ‌war with Iran, according ...
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Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
"For America to right itself, we need changes on the scale of Reconstruction and the New Deal. And I worry that’s not going to happen if Democrats and the broader anti-Trump left are taking their cues about what’s necessary and politically possible from the Times." newrepublic.com/article/2160...
newrepublic.com
The Left Must Fight The New York Times’ Monopoly Too
The paper’s editorial vision is out of step with the robust liberalism needed today.
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Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?” Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...
So the message of this research out of China, where you were seeing a lot of kids using A.I. to help them, was that when they were using the A.I., they were getting things done faster. But it turned out that the skills they were learning were not holding, that their actual personal performance, at least in the way we traditionally measure it, was degrading.

What do you think when you hear that?

The last part — I completely agree. Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter?

That’s my question for you.

Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does.

But there must be some set of skills that matter.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those.

There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address.And I ——

I don’t really believe that to be true.

It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you.

One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it.

But let me take the other side because I don’t want to fall into a thing where, because some skills can be safely offloaded ——

Yeah.

I also can’t get anywhere without a mapping system now. Never could, frankly. But I’m a big reader. And one of the skills I really value, one of the capacities I have that I really value is an attention span formed on physical books.

You’re a big reader. I’ve read about the kind of reading you do. And there is, prior to A.I., a lot of concern and noticing among college professors and others that the way people use the internet has probably shortened attention spans.
Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off.

Yeah. Well, I think that we’re going to lose some finer intellectual dexterity, but we’re going to be better systems thinkers.

Today’s engineers are far better systems thinkers than I was when I graduated from school. But I was a much better transistor thinker.

What do you mean by systems thinker?

They think of large systems. Today’s computers have trillions, hundreds of trillions of transistors in them. When I first graduated from school, the first chip I worked on had 200 transistors. I knew every one of them by name. No engineer does that today. Most engineers now work well above the transistor, well above the functionality, and they’re cobbling things together to do things.

So you need to think much more about systems and interactions of systems. So some of the lower-level knowledge is gone.
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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 24/09/2026
We are at the break glass moment on the Democratic Party and its treatment of transgender people, and it is my opinion that if we don’t act now and loudly demand to be heard, we will suffer the consequences of their shift.
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Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Knesset barred today the only two Palestinian led parties from running in the coming election. According to an overwhelming majority in the Knesset, the constitutional meaning of a Jewish State is a state where Palestinian citizens cannot run for parliament.
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Jason Leopold @jasonleopold.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
HUGE EXCLUSIVE from @bloomberg.com Inside the US ‘Kill Chain’ That Destroyed an Iranian School Pentagon investigators discovered that flawed intel, outdated imagery & overreliance on AI contributed to a missile strike that killed 123 children in Minab 🎁 www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...
bloomberg.com
Inside the US ‘Kill Chain’ That Destroyed an Iranian School
Pentagon investigators have discovered that flawed intelligence, outdated imagery and an overreliance on AI contributed to a missile strike that killed 123 children in Minab.
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Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
In the last decade, the IDF prosecuted one (1) soldier for unlawfully killing a Palestinian in the occupied territories. Elor Azaria served 9 months in prison. Today Israel's president, Yitzhak Herzog, pardoned him and expunged his criminal record. A clear message of 100% impunity.
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Common Dreams @commondreams.org · 13/09/2026
"Law enforcers already have authority to charge companies and their CEOs for creating and releasing dangerous, unvetted, or defective products."
commondreams.org
AI Firms Can and Must Face Liability for 'Dangerous, Unvetted Products,' Says Lina Khan
Former FTC Chair Lina Khan demands action on dangerous AI, calling for accountability for companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. Should lawmakers impose regulations to prevent AI from causing harm? The public demands answers as the industry faces scrutiny for its potential dangers. #AIregulation
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Sarah Lazare @sarahlazare.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Really glad @workdaymagazine.bsky.social was able to reprint this piece from @labornotes.bsky.social.
workdaymagazine.org
‘Treated Worse than Cattle’: 2,500 Tyson Workers Laid Off, Plant Shutters Overnight - Workday Magazine
This article was first published by Labor Notes and is reprinted with permission. Ouano Tante worked the afternoon shift at the Tyson beef plant in Joslin, Illinois, for five years. But when she and h...
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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 01/09/2026
To anyone paying any attention at all, it was always clear they would move from targeting youth trans care to adult trans care. Now, Wales' gender clinic has shut down surgeries for transgender adults, because too many trans people were getting care. Subscribe to support our journalism.
erininthemorning.com
Wales Gender Clinic In The UK Pauses Surgeries Over Accusations That They Help Too Many Trans Patients
UK doctors are notorious for delaying trans people’s care. One clinic didn’t—now, they’re being targeted.
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Ken Schwencke @schwanksta.com · 19/08/2026
Good morning to this beautiful #longchart showing DoD funding versus a bunch of other agencies. We're investigating the Pentagon's $1 trillion "black box" budget: www.propublica.org/article/mili...
A screenshot of the top of an article, showing a headline of "The $1 Trillion Black Box," framed by a downward-facing bar chart showing the DoD appropriations against agencies like the EPA. The bar goes to $1 trillion, with an extension to 1.4 trillion showing a proposed increase next year.
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Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
ICE and CBP are full of rapists and child predators. A new report details it in horrific detail.
forever-wars.com
The Sex Criminals and Child Abusers of ICE and CBP
Rape. Domestic violence. Epstein friendship. It's all tolerated by our valiant homeland-security apparatus. PLUS: COINTELPRO 2026
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Shipwreck @shipwreck75.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
How this man is allowed to freely move about is beyond me, disgusting human: Israel's far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir calls for nightly "targeted assassinations" in Gaza: "They're not even people." www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-...
cbsnews.com
Senior Israeli official calls for killing of "30 to 40" people in Gaza every night: "They're not even people"
Israel's far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir calls for nightly "targeted assassinations" in Gaza: "They're not even people."
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Jesse Coburn @jessecoburn.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
You and I — all of us taxpayers — funded this $533 million artillery plant outside of Dallas. It hasn’t produced a single usable shell. Yet the defense contractor, General Dynamics, has never been held publicly accountable. Nor has it had to pay a penny back… 1/
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 15/08/2026
That cardboard box in your home is fueling election denial... A boom in profits for the shipping supply giant Uline provided the funds for a deeply conservative Midwestern family to bankroll anti-democracy causes around the country. (Published 2022)
propublica.org
That Cardboard Box in Your Home Is Fueling Election Denial
A previously unreported boom in profits for the shipping supply giant Uline has provided the funds for a deeply conservative Midwestern family to bankroll anti-democracy causes around the country.
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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 14/08/2026
Exclusive: Michael Boren, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, asked agency staff last month to escalate the amount of aircraft at a seven-acre fire that had started near his mega-ranch in Idaho.
washingtonpost.com
Top Trump official asked for more resources to fight a small fire near his Idaho ranch
Michael Boren, who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, asked for more aircraft to contain a 7-acre blaze last month, officials said.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 14/08/2026
A study concluded that the uninhibited pumping of groundwater by farmers, cities and corporations around the world now accounts for 68% of the total loss of fresh water at the latitudes where most people live. (Published July 2025)
propublica.org
“Staggering” Water Loss Driven by Groundwater Mining Poses Global Threat
A new study finds that freshwater resources are rapidly disappearing, creating arid “mega” regions and causing sea levels to rise.
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Aron Lund @aronlund.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Extensive @financialtimes.com investigation documents ethnic cleansing by Israel in Lebanon. Shia villages and towns were completely wiped off the map by bulldozers and demolition teams after being emptied of their inhabitants. @rayajalabi.ft.com & Aditi Bhandari: www.ft.com/content/25bc...
ft.com
Israel’s campaign to make southern Lebanon ‘unliveable’
Israeli forces have systematically destroyed homes, roads, farmland and forests despite ceasefire with Hizbollah
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Ernest "Dead" Penfold @penfoldsfiv.eurosky.social · 12/08/2026
the media when the centrist loses by 1% vs the media when the leftist loses by (less than) 1%
bluesky post by Politico saying "Progressives didn't get the big election night they wanted" referring to Abdul el-Sayed defeating Haley Stevens in the MI Senate primary and linking to their story with that headline.bluesky post by Politico with the text "The far left hits a wall" referring to David Crowley defeating Francesca Hong in the WI Governor Primary and linking to their story with that headline
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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Not going to pretend that I know who the best candidate for Wisconsin governor is but it does seem pretty rich that a tweet from seven years ago is apparently a big political scandal given the shit we see posted every single day by everyone in power
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Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Centrist/Moderate is great branding because it implies reasonableness but there's nothing reasonable about stubbornly clinging to pro-business and pro-upper class politics when the country is falling apart. This is an ideology like any other, and it's a bad one
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 05/08/2026
Advance Financial’s Flex Loan charges 279.5% interest, trapping thousands of borrowers in debts that end up in court, where the company has won over $200 million in judgments since 2015. (Published May 2025 w/ @tennesseelookout.com)
propublica.org
This Lender Said Its Loans Would Help Tennesseans. It Has Sued More Than 110,000 of Them.
The Flex Loan, a type of payday loan pioneered by Advance Financial, has burdened low-income borrowers while generating huge profits for lenders. Tennessee lawmakers declined to rein in the lending bu...
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Frankie Huang 黄碧赤 @ourobororoboruo.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
I am making it a habit to always look for the labor story behind these nasty scandals. The consumers are almost never the only ones being harmed.
futurism.com
The Diarrhea Lettuce Company Has Been Linked to Forced Labor
The lettuce-producing Taylor Farms was linked to the widespread use of prison labor before its involvement in a cyclospora outbreak.
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Drop Site @dropsitenews.com · 01/08/2026
💢NEW: Israel Bombs Gaza, Kills Palestinians Hours After Trump Declares “Historic Breakthrough” Within hours of President Trump announcing a new agreement, new Israeli bombings and gunfire attacks killed at least one Palestinian and wounded several others in Gaza, medical authorities told outlets...

Drop Site
@DropSiteNews
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💢 NEW: Israel Bombs Gaza, Kills Palestinians Hours After Trump Declares “Historic Breakthrough”

Within hours of President Donald Trump announcing a new agreement, new Israeli bombings and gunfire attacks killed at least one Palestinian and wounded several others in Gaza, medical authorities told outlets.

Gaza relief coordinator Eyad Amawi told Drop Site News that Israeli forces also ordered the forced displacement of whole residential blocks in two different locations, in Deir al-Balah and Nuseirat refugee camp. The orders violate the original ceasefire, as well as the newly agreed deal, and forced hundreds of Palestinians, including families with young children, to flee again in the middle of the night with nowhere to go. Hundreds are sleeping in the streets, Amawi told Drop Site.

The forced evacuations are part of Israel’s continued advance beyond the original ceasefire line. Under the watch of the U.S. President and his U.N.-backed Board of Peace, Israel has expanded its “Yellow Line” (marking the territory it controls in Gaza), from roughly 53% to around 70%, without either challenging the illegal advance.

Hamas said Friday that the first step toward implementing the agreement must be an Israeli commitment “to stopping the killing and ending its attacks.”

A senior Israeli official immediately said there would be “no withdrawal whatsoever” from the current Yellow Line unless Hamas undergoes what Israel considers “genuine disarmament.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not publicly said whether he accepts President Trump’s deal, which requires Israel to halt its attacks, finally allow adequate food, water, shelter and fuel into besieged Gaza, and withdraw first to the original ceasefire line, and then from all of Gaza.
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Travis @someforeignfield.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Can we put AI people in Guantanamo pls 🙏
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
A U.S. government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a ⁠global conference www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
A U.S. government map of Africa mislabeled every country during a state department presentation at a ⁠global conference
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Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
US defeat in Iran isn't just real. It's quantifiable. And it can get a whole lot worse.
forever-wars.com
The Math Behind The U.S. Defeat in Iran
Missile-interceptor stocks are dwindling after only five months. That Memorandum of Understanding is looking pretty enticing!
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Bill @bill-of-lefts.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
the main Israeli opposition is as bad as Bibi on every issue that matters
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Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
@francescahongwi.bsky.social is talking about defense conversion in Oshkosh factories, ending 287(g)s and disallowing cooperation with the JTTF in Wisconsin. I have never remotely heard a candidate talk this way — this concretely, this creatively, this aggressively— about uprooting militarism.
kenklippenstein.com
Exclusive: Francesca Hong Takes on National Security
Wisconsin candidate for Governor talks NSPM-7, Iran War, ICE + more
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Elizabeth Lopatto @lopatto.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
I am convinced that LLMs and AI image generators and so on are the result of a bunch of engineers looking at art and going “ok but how hard can it really be?” at the very bottom of the AI “art” is a basic disrespect for human creativity
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Max Blau @maxblau.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
I’ve reported at length about abuses of foreign farmworkers who come to the U.S. on H-2A visas: stolen wages, guns pointed in their faces. One woman I met was kidnapped, raped and nearly killed. I wanted to know: How do I tell if the produce I buy is part of the problem? 👇
Blueberries beginning to ripen in a field in Georgia. Credit: Zaydee Sanchez for ProPublica.A trove of passports that federal prosecutors say had been confiscated illegally from farmworkers by labor contractors. Obtained by ProPublica.
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