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David Rafferty

@davidrafferty.bsky.social
4.5K followers 4.5K following 9.6K posts

Roman historian in South Australia. Current project: “How Republics Die: Rome’s democratic breakdown in the 1st century BCE”. Husband and father. I’m the one who set cats and dogs against each other.

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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
@radiofreetom.bsky.social Tom, it’s your time to shine:
Reddit screenshot:

r/NoStupidQuestions u/bonthebruh • 6m
Is it weird to take my shoes off on planes?
My gf says it's gross and rude but I do it every time | love it
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
The nurses can leave a message:
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
(If you don’t recognise the name, Wilfred Brambell was Paul’s grandfather in A Hard Day’s Night) The backseat byplay between the three supports would be out of this world.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
PG was the mistake here. Otherwise this would be Dirty Rotten Scoundrels territory.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
This is far too optimistic. “Which votes get counted as valid” is where the steal happens, I think. Because the Supreme Court can be relied on to throw out any group of ballots it is asked to. Also, that has been the main play since 2000.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I for one am ready to join the Papal brigades in the fight against the machines.
Detail from the fresco “The Battle of the Milvian Bridge” which hangs in the Vatican, showing Constantine on a white horse.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
My daughter and her friend are watching anime. This is what I’m thinking as the characters deliver their serious internal monologues:
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I am suddenly back in Year 9.
Doc Smith’s Second Stage Lensmen
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Bluesky serendipity.
aggressive deaccessio... @kaylou... • 3h how many times do you reckon the word
'sectarian' has been used in ACARS
before
probably not a lot but probably mostly from flights over the UK & Ireland
) ACARS Drama @acarsdram... • 4h
Air to Ground Message:
CAN URQST POLICE FOR US IN BFS.
PAX IN 12F MALE. VAPING.DRINKING OWN ALCOHOL. VERBALLY AGRESSIVE SECTARIAN COMMENTS AND NON COMPLY THANKS. XXXX
Area: Chester, UK
Type: Airbus A320
A: #aa364d356e6
F: #fe487e0a27d
฿ 2
6
•••
Dr. Seuss Bot @dr-seuss-bot.bsk...
I'm so sorry, Mr. Knox, sir.
• 2h
1l
冂
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Share an actor who nailed a role so hard that nobody else will ever be able to live up to it…
Penelope Keith in To The Manor Born.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
For Newcastle Knights supporters trying to describe their feelings tonight, this may help.
Part of Nick Hornby’s chapter “The Greatest Moment Ever” from Fever Pitch.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The AI companies’ approach to liability:
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Frinkiac cell. Homer. “HEY! JUST BECAUSE I DON'T CARE ( DOESN'T MEAN I DON'T UNDERSTAND.”
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Honourable mentions: TIE Fighter, Space Quest IV
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
One of the good dumb movies of the early 2000s.
RT screenshot of Dude Where’s My Car. 16% on Tomatometer. 47% on Popcommeter.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
"His Holiness decrees that the Spanish and Portuguese empires shall be divided at the Hobart-Perth Line. Those English savages can have the Brisbane Zone."
Terrible Maps - world map image of the closest Australian city
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
#Brownlow #AFL It’s happening.
A full coffee mug saying P Cripps 3 Votes
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Someone randomly liked this, just now. I haven’t the faintest idea what this was about. You know how often you can reconstruct the earlier bit of the conversation, at least in part? Here: nope. Not at all.
Post blocked
David Rafferty
@davidrafferty.bsky.social
That's ridiculous. It's clearly the ghost of Baruch Spinoza, returned to earth to chastise us all for not following his teachings.
12:25 PM • Feb 10, 2024
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
It just struck me that this meme is exactly the same style of humour as Monty Python’s Flying Circus, which may be why I love it so much.
Lord of the Rings meme: That is a volvo sedan, unless my eyes are cheated by some spell
The 200 series is the lord of all volvos, and has been my friend through many dangers
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Does this count as a hat trick?
Dortmund 3-2 Villarreal, with Guirassy scoring twice for Dortmund and an own goal for Villarreal.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
What‘s the example of perfect casting? (“Oh Mr Collins!”)
David Bamber as Cicero
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Suffragia non olet. (Lit. “Votes don’t stink”. Calling out the emperor Vespasian who, when challenged on the whiffiness of collecting tax on public toilets, replied “pecunia non olet” - money doesn’t stink.)
I wish someone could explain to me why the leftist calculus seems to go:
"Republican electeds? Scum of the earth, bottom feeders, throw em off a bridge.
Republican voters who go for those electeds every single time? They're good folk, we can use them, they just want free healthcare I think" 2/4
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
David Rafferty
@davidrafferty.bsky.social
In the Roman civil war, Marcus Brutus sided with the guy who'd killed his dad over the guy who'd been shagging his mum.
3:09 PM • Apr 4, 2024
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Um, no. The CEOs are already too much like tyrants, and their ability to read deeply is…limited.
A copy of Machiavelli’s The Prince on a bookshop shelf above the category title “Business Philosophy “
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
You can easily imagine him doing this:
A statue of Hercules and the Nemean Lion.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Is anyone getting this for @gilduran.com or anyone else? I’d wanted to mention that he got a major write up on the ABC front page today: www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09...
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
There are people who say this attitude is divisive and counterproductive. Those people are wrong only because they believe the regime can be removed by internal forces. It (very likely) cannot. Only by external forces.
Your Internet Friend Tom...
@tomtomorrow.bsky.social
just saw one of the never-trumpers making a reasonable point and I still feel like, thanks buddy for fucking laying the groundwork for this horrible reality. thanks for supporting the republican party of the iraq war and the nascent surveillance state. here we are! thanks to you, pal.
8:15 AM • Sep 1, 2026 23 Some people can reply
13 reposts
230 likes
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Your Internet Friend...
@tomt... • 47m
I know, I know, we need all hands on deck. still, the only thing I want to hear from those guys is "I'm sorry, I was a fucking pathetic excuse for a human being with absolutely no moral center, and I will never open my mouth in public
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
This both (a) true and (b) why Bluesky is the natural home for academics (and former academics) in their forties.
Bluesky is basically a Twitter clone (with some technical differences I don't really understand). It looks and works almost exactly like Twitter did circa 2017; even the color scheme is the same. The main
difference is that the people posting on Bluesky in 2026 are more boring and less funny than the people who were on Twitter in its heyday.
But that's a good thing. Bluesky is the methadone to the heroin of Twitter - it satisfies the craving without getting you high.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
The Unfinished Tales one in particular. (The one you quoted was my PB edition from when I was a teenager until it started to disintegrate a few years ago)
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
When’s the last time a team had five posters? #AFL
A graphic of Carlton’s scoring, showing 5 shots hitting the post.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
#AFL
Troy McClure: “FINALS!
IS THERE ANY WORD MORE
THRILLING TO THE HUMAN SOUL?”
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
We both know the correct answer here.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I’ve thought for years that Trump is just a combination of Homer and Burns (without either’s redeeming features), but perhaps he is more Bart in this specific Treehouse of Horror?

AND OUR COUNTRY ISN'T CALLED
AMERICA ANYMORE.
It'S BONERLAND.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
These are the opportunities headline writers dream about.
Guardian headline: "Sociedad threaten first-leg shock
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
And discover it’s just this repeated 4000 times.
Frinkiac. Skinner looking through a telescope, Bart with a clipboard. He’s reading astronomical data.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
It’s a good feeling, going to the footy.
Looking across the footbridge to the the Adelaide Oval at night.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Post a perfect album from the 2000s (2000-2009).
Tool - Lateralus
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
A Reddit screenshot titled “Name this hypothetical country” and it’s a map of Greece and Turkey combined.Tom Hardy in the “That’s Bait” meme.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
The final scene, when the captive vampire is pleading eloquently for his freedom in a boardroom of corporate types.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I've got an alert set up for "Roman Republic" on something similar to Google Scholar (but not). So why do all these titles sound like they're the manifesto of a mass shooter?
The Structural Operating System of European Civilization:
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2026
Full Text Available
The Structural Operating System of European Civilization:
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 2026
Full Text Available
Why It's OK to Be Patriotic
2026
Full Text Available
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
A classic of the genre:
N. G. L. Hammond
British historian of ancient Greece (1907-
2001)
Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière
Hammond, CBE, DSO, FBA (15 November 1907 - 24 March 2001) was a British historian, geographer, classicist and an operative for the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in occupied Greece during the Second World War.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
The Crows’ banner people have been spending too much time on Reddit. #AFL
Crows’ banner with the words “It’s Crom Time”.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
If you look up “tantalising” in the dictionary, you find this image.
Bluesky screenshot . 
David Rafferty
@davidrafferty.bsky.social
This is literally the most correct anyone has ever been. Not just on this site, but in all of human history.
You are now the pole star by which science guides itself. Karl Popper be damned; we have a new standard for truth.
10:03 PM • Oct 17, 2023

This is a reply to “Post not found”. So what was it? What got me so excited? I will crawl over broken glass to find out.
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
A first-year undergraduate describing themselves as “in the antepenultimate year of my degree”.
Winnie the Pooh in a tux, looking smug af
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
That might be the most fun I’ve ever had watching football. #AFL
The final score: Carlton 24.10.154 to Brisbane 11.12.78
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David Rafferty @davidrafferty.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Rachel Weisz in Agora.
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