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Dark Laughter

@darklaughtertdb.bsky.social
5.3K followers 423 following 6.4K posts

OIF/OEF vet and Duffel Blog writer. DarkLaughterTDB (at) gmail (dot) com #satire #natsec 💵Tip Jar: www.charitynavigator.org/discover-c…

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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 2h
Okay, I can't stand Trump, but I'm going to start using this "twenty O" thing to get a head start on being a really annoying old guy. Might even throw an aught in there, like "It was back in twenty aught seven, during the Iraq Surge..."
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 2h
Military reenactments are to grown men what Halloween is to grown women.
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 2h
Between this and the Cultural Revolution rocket scientist gang war, I feel like it might be worth starting a list of all the cases where people have managed to turn art and science into Gangs of New York street fights.
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Mike @forbesmm.bsky.social · 23h
When it’s a nice round number like 10% or 20% that’s how you know it’s rooted in solid, detailed analysis www.foxnews.com/politics/exc...
foxnews.com
EXCLUSIVE: Hegseth to double cuts to generals, admirals in major Pentagon shakeup
Pete Hegseth's State of the Force address doubles last year's cuts, targeting a 20% reduction in general and flag officer billets across all services.
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 22h
Going on record now that this is just a room of people appealing to national security to snow someone who can print money into bailing them out of their terrible money fire investments.
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Jim LaPorta @jimlaporta.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Def. Sec. Hegseth signed a memo today that CBS News obtained two months ago eliminating civilian tenure at military service academies. The Daily Wire was first to report on Tuesday that Hegseth signed the memo CBS News first reported on. Story: www.cbsnews.com/news/dod-pen...
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Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 29/09/2026
move over polycrisis the OMNICRISIS has arrived
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I love business plans that are like "While we will lose money on every transaction, our strategy to become profitable can be summed up in one word: Volume."
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
On the lighter side, this would make for a relatively easy Saw trap to escape.
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Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
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Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 28/09/2026
this is not a comment on the art, but rather a comment on a personal bugbear, scifi firearms design, which seems to be permanently locked in to "what if failed firearms experiments from the 80s were the future"
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
From the cheap seats, the things that have interested me the most have been 1. The use of Zhurihe as the equivalent of NTC to have OPFOR kick their commanders' asses, and 2. The creation of the Joint Logistics Support Force, their answer to DLA/TRANSCOM.
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Sara Straw @oneoneder.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Keep an eye on new Kalshi bets for spoilers
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Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 28/09/2026
Our recent poll of Democratic voters found 75% say they would feel "very positive" upon hearing news that "President Donald Trump has been impeached and convicted by both houses of Congress and has been removed from office." www.liberalcurrents.com/what-are-dem...
liberalcurrents.com
What Are Democrats Thinking?
Democratic voters want to end the filibuster, nationalize artificial intelligence, and prosecute every Trump toady.
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Great, can't wait to see what kind of season 5 plotline he's come up with this time. He's banning exports of diesel? He's invading Cuba? Aliens are real?
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Aaron Ross Powell @aaronrosspowell.com · 27/09/2026
If you were into TTRPGs in the late 90s and early 2000s, you might remember a website I ran called the Gaming Outpost. It was, for a time, the biggest TTRPG site out there, was the birthplace of indie RPGs, and the early home of several now prominent designers. It went offline 20 years ago.
gamingoutpost.com
The Gaming Outpost
Articles, reviews, and forums from the Gaming Outpost.
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PT Klein @ptklein.com · 26/09/2026
I’m on @frnclassics.bsky.social this weekend talking about John Frankenheimer’s Cold War thriller Seven Days in May. Join me for a conversation about paranoid anxieties, film history, and the continued relevance of midcentury politics in our current moment.
nprillinois.org
Front Row Classics discusses 1962's Seven Days in May
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
If you're evil you're competent? Camera pans to Thiel's pal/enemy/frenemy/fellow traveler/ideological twin Elon Musk, who is wearing an "It's good to be evil" shirt while his head is stuck between the balusters of a staircase.
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Anthony Zacharzewski @anthonyzach.be · 26/09/2026
Reading this piece (content warning - it's a hard read) by @poisonivy.bsky.social, gives me strong echoes of the sexual abuse cover-ups in far-left particules that were in the press a decade or so ago. Cults gonna cult. theasterisk.substack.com/p/the-effect...
theasterisk.substack.com
The Effective Altruism Kids Aren’t Alright
On sexual violence, Slutcon, and what happens when children take on adult responsibilities.
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Jamie Smart @jamiesmart.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Can’t eat a sandwich until you subscribe to sandwiches. Can’t eat today’s sandwich until it has applied daily sandwich updates. Sandwich now has adverts even though you paid for ad-free sandwich. Can pay again to have less sandwich adverts. Now you can eat the sandwich, but it’s smaller.
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I feel like this is more of a warning against the danger posed by both AI doomers and e/acc than the danger posed by AI itself.
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Adam @adam35.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 25/09/2026
Imagine if instead of regulating drone risks the normal way (which we did), we instead paid weird bloggers lots of money to worry about superintelligent dogs sprouting thumbs and using drones to kill us. This is pretty much how the US is approaching AI risks and regulations. My latest:
little-flying-robots.ghost.io
Why We Can't Let Enormous Weirdos Regulate AI
Imagine if instead of regulating drones via the standard lengthy, boring, and bureaucratic process - which we did - we instead decided, in the name of fostering all-important American drone innovation...
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is dumb, but I regret to tell you it's less the Iran kind of dumb, where you can get left impotent while destroying the global economy, than the Venezuela kind of dumb, where stupidity might function as speed, deception, and surprise to the point the plan actually works.
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
"In the summer of 1986, Paparo took his future wife, Maureen, to watch “Top Gun.” “The hero of the movie is actually Iceman,” Paparo says..." Damn right. This is like the opposite of when toxic SWOs claim the real message of The Caine Mutiny is "Queeg was right." time-magazine.visitlink.me/tI_lZa
time-magazine.visitlink.me
Exclusive: The Admiral Who Must Prevent War With China
U.S Pacific Commander Samuel Paparo’s force covers more than half the earth’s surface. His goal? Winning without fighting.
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I'm pretty sure like 99% of you are going to end up getting this book.
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
It's kind of remarkable this hasn't already happened. Like Trump would come up with this, the protocol guy would be a 22 year old Groyper so he wouldn't stop it, and the entire Chinese foreign policy apparatus would have to write analysis because their bosses wouldn't settle for "He's an asshole."
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Kori Schake @kschake.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Gamel Abdul Nasser once said something to the effect that you Americans make no simple stupid moves, you make complicated stupid moves that leave us wondering what we’re missing.
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
At the time we talked about how this operation ignored the need to get PID. Some people thought it was as indefensible as landmines, but to be honest even landmines give you an idea of at least where they'll be when they go off.
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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
the openai company uniform
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I realize CK3 is a newer game to have shaped who I am, but the average person lives for like 4000 weeks, we're awake for a fraction of that, and I've spent several full weeks worth of those waking hours on CK3.
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Clay Copper @claycopper.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Gimme your best recs for the true test of Joint Warfighting Evaluation!
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Every GO: "I thank the lord for his advice, though I don't recall hearing about any wargames of his..."
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I wonder how much the hackers are going to have to pay the FBI to take this data back so they don't need to read any more stuff about bestiality.
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☀️ Starshine @starshine.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
What’s your fake starwars academic paper
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
You can flee to Chicago, but sometimes trying too hard to hate on the rest of the Midwest just outs you as a self-loathing hayseed.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 22/09/2026
"We were letting actual 8th graders sneak into our wild drug and sex parties at our Silicon Valley AI group house" is the most eyebrow-raising quote among many from that New York Times piece, IMO. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/t...
The house quickly became a hub for events. Eric Zhu, 19, a tech entrepreneur, said he used to sneak into parties there when he was about 13. No one checked anyone’s age, he said, and “it was pretty crazy.”
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Sam (ABeardedPanda) @abeardedpanda.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I saw the type of chart mediazona decided to use and I think I need to see a neurologist
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I love the 13% who hear "The US military has conducted a coup" and are like "whatever."
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I realize all our risk averse FOGOs make you think they'd strive to be not just nonpartisan but also apolitical, that they wouldn't rock the boat, and that they'd urgently hand off power. And all of that may be true. But I regret to inform you that living in a bubble sometimes makes them a bit nuts.
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I have a similar thing with Marines I deployed with like 20 years ago, but some look like Wavy Gravy, some look like George Liquor, and a couple look like normal functioning adults who treat the Marine Corps as just one step in a larger career that doesn't define their entire life.
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
This same picture, but taken in a concrete bunker as NSA Bahrain is destroyed around them.
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
You can't go wrong putting that picture on the cover of a book about airpower. You could put it on Harry Potter and the Power of Air and it would do pretty well.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 21/09/2026
one thing that is worth remember apropos this useful piece is that novel technologies do not necessarily require novel political solutions. americans have had to deal with fast-moving, disruptive technological change in the past, and they did so through collective, democratic action.
nytimes.com
Opinion | Bernie Sanders, Steve Case and Others on What Washington Should Do Now on A.I.
How can the government reel in the technology? Here are six ideas.
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Dark Laughter @darklaughtertdb.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Me inhaling this thread:
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Museum of Twitter @museum-of-twitter.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
@Very__Regular

george lucas, 1975 (in tunisia, severely dehydrated, over budget) sure, yeah. put the little blue guy in the background. is alec still in his trailer

guy who gets mad for money on youtube, 2024: and now disney made Deebo Threebo green. that's how little respect they have for you
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Lindsay P Cohn @lindsaypcohn.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
It has happened. My students (mostly MA-level) are officially Too Young To Have Seen LOTR I was going to use a scene from Two Towers to illustrate a concept and they all just looked at me Blankly What do I do Ok kids next six class sessions devoted to movie time
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