iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 9h

“This $6 (((loaf))) is better than my usual $1.25 loaf, it must be a conspiracy!”

Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Apparently KY, LA, and MS elect governors at year 3 of the presidential term, but seems like you don’t hear too much about them. I wonder how they feel about their experiences vs. how NJ/VA feel. Obviously very different political cultures though.

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

In theory, off-year should be better bc it allows/forces people to focus on their state govt w/o it just getting subsumed into the federal election. In reality, nobody does that so, especially in Year 1 of a new POTUS, it just becomes a thermostatic referendum. Governor at Pres midterm may be best

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

If I were trying to boost Ken Paxton, of all people, I would maybe not portray his youthful opponent as “a guy who plays sports with his friends.” People going through their piles of election junk mail might just see the picture and not catch why it’s supposed to be bad!

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Yes. He doesn’t talk like a sales pitch or “meeting people where they are,” but rather like what he’s saying is the most obvious thing in the world to everybody except that guy over there. Obviously very different in style & substance, but it sort of rhymes w/ what ppl originally liked about Trump

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I know 50 years is a long time, but 0-4 (or worse) is pretty bad. I wonder how many winless teams Dallas has hosted in Week 5 or later during that time (assuming that’s what “0-4 or worse” means, which given the rest of it, who knows)

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

They’re just paying homage to a classic meme, it’s fine

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

With some of the cheaper models, it’s closer to a million tokens per dollar. That’s a lot of Skee-ball!

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Absolutely should investigate them. But I don’t think Kushner holds any official position at all, so he really would be outside the scope of impeachment. (Though could be an interesting question of whether and how Congress can make him stop acting as de facto Secretary of State/envoy…)

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Says who? The Constitution doesn’t say that, and the only body competent to decide what’s impeachable is Congress. (I guess in theory if they impeached and removed, he could sue for his paycheck, but at that point, you’re asking a court to overrule 67 senators.)

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Alright, the median voter has spoken. Can’t wait for the popularists to demand this… any day now, I’m sure.

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I think that’s right. I can’t find it now, but I seem to remember seeing something recently about Texas, saying that pro-Paxton spending had to be like 4x as high to get equal airtime because it was by outside groups while Talarico got the candidate rate.

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

To be fair, if poor people in the past had access to affordable and reliable contraception, they very well might have had fewer kids! (Obviously they had ways to make pregnancy less likely, but having a real choice is a very recent innovation.)

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I wonder, are the ads from Democrats more likely to mention the name of their political party this year? It’s possible some people aren’t aware that the “independent-minded conservative fighter, standing up for (state) values” is actually a Republican.

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Lots of US universities have multiple “colleges” within them. But they’re mostly administrative groups of subject-based departments (eg, Arts & Sciences; College of Agriculture) rather than the residential Oxbridge model. I think the UK term is “faculty”? But St Andrews sounds similar to US use too

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Obviously the Executive Branch has a lot more badges and guns and a whole military apparatus, but if that becomes relevant, you’re in coup/literal civil war territory, not just “will the outgoing Speaker try to pull some rules trick, even though he’s not actually Speaker anymore?”

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The guys with the badges and guns at the Capitol work for Congress, and the Capitol Police already protects leadership including the minority party. So the suggestion here is that the same police force that guards Jeffries, Schumer, etc. today is going to lead a coup on January 3?

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The only thing is, he feels *personally* aggrieved and insulted that “his” picks haven’t been sufficiently loyal to what he wants to do. So he’s going to need someone like Miller or Blanche to strongly endorse the candidate rather than outsourcing to the FedSoc short list again.

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Yes, I have no such illusions about Johnson’s willingness to do whatever it takes. Glad that his term as speaker ends automatically so at least it will be a much heavier lift.

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Fortunately, a majority of the holdover senators (34-31) are Democrats, so presumably if they also refused to seat the new/re-elected Republicans, Thune/GOP would lack the majority. And then the new Dem majority would proceed as normal. But I think any of this is a bridge too far for Thune anyway.

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Huh. I never understood it to be “calling someone X can’t ever lead to them being more X” but more like “if getting called X turns you into X, that reflects badly on you, it’s not an excuse.” The guy in the comic sucks b/c he acts like it’s not his fault, not b/c he’s unrealistic in his narrative.

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Food $200 Data $150 Rent $800 Utility $150 And my only asset is a dollar bill the size of Rhode Island someone who is good at the economy please help me budget this. my family is dying

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

“he had his [redacted] handed to him at the State Fair” sounds like a pro wrestling promo on a TV station with very strict decency standards

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Okay, but what if we also pair that with a massive tax increase on imports, which we then propose to use to make a $5000 payment to every adult citizen? Does *that* sound like something a Marx-loving socialist would do??

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

What is the contrast here even supposed to be? “Most people agree it’s ok to cut off abusive parents” vs. “82% of cut-off parents were called abusive/unsafe.” So the vast majority of cases fit the category that we all agree is fine, at least per the kids who felt abused? So what’s the problem again?

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I assume anything under 10% is indistinguishable from random noise, but I would love to chat with a sincere Iowa or Nebraska secessionist just to hear their vision of how it would go

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Right, Virginia and Maryland being even as high as the mid-teens is plausible in a survey taken in early 2026 and at basically no other time in the last 50 years.

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

But four debates in a Senate race, especially in just a month, yeah that was a crazy thing to agree to—especially when she has the superior name recognition and incumbency, and she’s not exactly the most dynamic or charismatic personality either

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I would guess backing out of debates you agreed to would generate significant negative headlines, while actually doing the debates most likely doesn’t matter unless you really fall apart. She’s old, she seems old on TV, but that’s not news; backing out “raises questions” (including about age)

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

The takeaway seems to be that any amount of hard work or merit is the wrong amount, unless you have the right “relational” (??) status, but obviously this isn’t meant racistly, how dare you even insinuate such a thing.

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Uh, I think that’s the problem these guys have with it! There was a whole thing yesterday about how studying for the spelling bee is un-American. In other words, brown people are out-hustling “us” and taking “our” spots. (Compared to affirmative action, where “lazy”/dumb people take “our” spots.)

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

If Georgia OR Texas starts to look anything like Virginia, even if a Youngkin occasionally slips through, that would be an absolute earthquake

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Oh yeah, I wasn’t saying they are, just… hypothetically… one could imagine some company not making this a priority and then shrugging when people ask questions. I assume you could get in trouble for totally and openly blowing it off, but probably could get away with a superficial effort.

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Seems like EU doesn’t have any requirement for how successful the watermark is. Not sure a numeric standard would even be possible to implement. But if the FPR is too high (or TPR is way too low), nobody can really use it, so you’ve basically circumvented the purpose of the law, right?

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I guess The Great Replacement has moved into a more aggressive phase

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I don’t know how they could possibly enforce that! There’s no rule about how much profit a gas station can make, and wholesale prices fluctuate constantly, so you can’t just do a before and after. Ultimately, competition will get you there, so sounds like just a way for politicians to take credit

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

How do you start a conversation with that phrase and then somehow manage to make it weirder? That shouldn’t be possible!

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

There have been many election years when Ken Paxton could have won a Senate seat in Texas. There are probably several Republican candidates who could win a Senate seat in Texas in 2026. But Ken Paxton in 2026 might just be a bridge too far.

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Ah fair enough, you certainly know the numbers far better than I do. But have you considered the possibility there could be 30-50k Earle-Sears ➡️ Beyer voters out there? 😂

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The rare case of someone saying a politician is dirty and meaning it as a very high compliment!

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Highly educated, high income, high level of federal government employment/connection… Dem turnout will approach or exceed presidential-year levels. (I just checked quickly, and Beyer actually got slightly more votes in 2018 than he did in 2016, so this isn’t even a super-hot take, imho.)

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

VA-08 will be hilariously lopsided. Data point: in the primary, in the middle of summer, with a fairly non-competitive race (technically 5 Dems running, but Beyer wasn’t in much real jeopardy), VA-08 Dem turnout was more than 1/4 the size of the *statewide* (11 districts) GOP Senate primary

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

But are those people “American” in a way that Wanye or, say, Bo French would acknowledge? I feel sure that’s what this is really about, but I’m not going on X to confirm.

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

If (but only if) the midterm meets or exceeds the most optimistic Democratic win, it would arguably be within their mandate to remove them both

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Also in looking to see what other elections Idaho has this year, I learned the Constitution Party nominee for governor is a guy who legally changed his name to “Pro-Life” who quit the LDS Church because they don’t believe in fetal personhood. His bio page is amazing

prolife-idaho.com

About Pro-Life | ProLife Idaho - Vote by Principle!

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

So 15% of likely voters are still not sure about their 18-year incumbent, and 6% of LV might leave the line blank in one of their marquee (and maybe only competitive) general elections? Hmm… interesting

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Somehow the ghost of “don’t be evil” sneaked into the training data?

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I’d also like to see it with one of the values reversed (maybe show as “net disapproval”?) so the correlation would be even clearer

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Skoo Bly User @gapineesq.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

And I would wager that ~none of those assaults were committed by trans women in women’s restrooms/locker rooms. I assume if that ever happened for real, the perpetrator(s) would be shown on Fox News at least once an hour for months and would become the 21st century’s Willie Horton

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