hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 2hTrump imagines that Putin will be sated with the old Soviet territories plus Europe. In exchange, he receives the Western Hemisphere. The tiger in the tiger pit may have other ideas. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 23hRelatedly, it's standard to pull out an October Surprise to sway elections. This works best with close ones -- Comey/FBI/NYT pushed Hillary far enough down on Oct. 28/Oct. 31 to deny her victory -- but any port in a storm. Not unthinkable that Trumpco is aiming for a "ceasefire" to claim. 041
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 14/10/2026"...people who break the law for an administration must face accountability..." It's astounding that this has to be argued. These days it seems you have to be preternaturally sharp, like Serwer, to perceive and assert the most basic premises that give meaning to 'law'. 020
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 14/10/2026DIY? In front of the mirror, defiantly: “I can too do it myself!” 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 13/10/2026"I love you too sir. In a totally platonic way, to be clear." Not convinced this plays well in the locker room. 010
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 13/10/2026Jeffries is the living incarnation of "Demming out." "He should" instantiates the more general formula "Democrats should" with, alas, the same Sisyphean hopefulness. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 13/10/2026A number, for Trump, is just an off-the-cuff decoration for a story he's "weaving." He knows they impress other people but isn't exactly sure why. 080
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 12/10/2026The election is in 3 weeks, and they're treating it like the arrival of doom. He desperately needs an October surprise. A poor planner, he's using the tools he has immediately at hand to see what he can stir up. Where does the Trumpian herky-jerk take us this time? 0130
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 12/10/2026We have about 3 wks before the election, which the Trumpist coalition regards as world-ending. Expect a lot of action from on high. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 11/10/2026Newsom appears to be a typical (?) 5th columnist Dem. He's spotted the hunger-for-fight driven by the dank Schumer-style control of the party and has the skill to play to it. But Kennerly's story rings true. We forget that being a politician is a job leading to the next job. 030
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 10/10/2026Is Trump preparing to cash out? His whole life-support system could go south in many ways at once. Putin, Xi, the ‘gelicals, fascists, and looters have little reason to continue with pat-a-cake if he’s got nothing for them. This is not his first know-when-to-run. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Some people don't have 'beliefs'. They're playing a different game. He's just saying what he thinks will bamboozle the rubes he thinks he's bamboozling. This is what 'smart' means to him. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Thanks for injecting a breath of realism into this discussion. I'm enjoying the sober invocation of 1950's "harassment parenting" ideas, as if literally nothing has been learned in the last 75 years about their actual effects. It doesn't take a weatherman, but you do have to look out the window. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Does the "wife" actually hang around for the long term? Does the kid? No matter, he can train a model -- but he'd better start now. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Anyone else still mildly surprised that Rubio has become an open unapologetic 1930's-style fascist? In the American context, I can see how there'd be a temptation to gain prominence by jumping early to play for the other team. But surely he's aware of the graveyard at the end of the rainbow? 020
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Although Hegseth may have acquired his military acumen through repeated viewings of Conan the Destroyer, it's worth asking what a shaved white beefcake force would still be good for. 1) OK for handling defenseless civilians within the U.S. 2) OK as a conduit for trillions into selected pockets. 111
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 04/10/2026 the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 04/10/2026In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; 100
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Trump's basic insight is that if you kiss his ass, you are willing to eat shit. 050
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Every fascism is different and Trump's contribution is to intertwine its doctrinal threads with unapologetic criminality. We have mob rule, though not in the sense it was feared by the Fondatori. 010
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 02/10/2026We’re in the minority so we can’t do anything. We don’t have a supermajority so we can’t do anything. We don’t have the Supreme Court so we can’t do anything. We have an election in 2 years so we can’t do anything. ”Reform” happens. Isn’t that the way it works? 020
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 01/10/2026“$5 billion in 18 months…” FWIW that’s over $9 million / day. 040
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 30/09/2026UK friends like to poke British-type fun at America's childlike wonderment at the wonderfulness of its "democracy." These days we need sophisticated lawyers to tell us whether grotesque misuse of public funds is "really legal." It doesn't take a weatherman. 010
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 29/09/2026"offering nothing to stay-at-home parents" Except the desperately needed opportunity to get out and acquire enough income to pay the rent, mortgage, car loan, grocery bill,... I take it that our author has never encountered or perhaps even noticed any of the people for whom he so helpfully speaks. 0391
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Reading comprehension test of the day (WaPo). "Election 2026" "At every turn, Trump’s ideas for aiding U.S. consumers run into resistance." Isn't it marvelous that the Leader has so many helpful ideas and isn't it sad that no one is willing to help him? 010
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 28/09/2026To paraphrase Maya Angelou: if someone tells you who they want to exterminate, believe them at least the 100th time. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 28/09/2026"because there is no legal/constitutional way to fix this shit" Or if there is, applying it requires a stable political context that doesn't exist. The zillionaires aren't going away just because gas-price voters tilt Dem for one or two cycles. 060
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Trump's whole shtick is building a triple alliance with Putin & Xi that trifurcates the planet into 3 spheres of predation. He thinks that the other guys are somehow not going to eat him alive if he placates them with obeisance. 010
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Like they say, "Du bist doch nicht aus Zucker!" I believe disdain for the rain-averse is common throughout Northern Europe. Though the PNW attitude is more like, why bother worrying about it. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 26/09/2026If he’d asked Elon, it would have been ‘XI’. Sycophanting 2 birds with one letter. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 26/09/2026This headline achieves a rare degree of epistemological clarity.theguardian.comAlberta’s self-image as world’s only rat-free region shattered by discovery of ratProvince’s rat patrol called in to investigate as town of Bowden announces discovery of dead vermin 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I’m unconvinced that we can get it back, for a reason that maybe your observations imply. Let's even put aside the unlikelihood of a deep purge. The silence and support of the Rs as a block says that it can happen whenever they have power again. 110
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Looking at the layout, my guess would be that the plan is to use several steps in place of brute-force working with 7 + 8 =15. You kind of pivot around 10, which is easier to work with. 15 -10 =5 10 - 7 =3 Then, 5+3 =8. Not unreasonable. And pretty usable when generalized to 100s and so on. 140
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Xi is going to skin Trump alive. Do you wanna make a deal? 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 24/09/2026"Harris's people should have... " This is right of course but let's recall that Harris-Walz dropped their surprising forward phase after about two weeks. Was it some kind of internal recoil from Walz's "weird" and weirdly successful body-blow? It looked like a classic case of Demming out. 021
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 22/09/2026De gustibus means that I won’t bother you if you won’t bother me. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 21/09/2026These are dodges, felt to be crafty. Behind "precedent" and "[currently] law of the land" is the wink-wink that SCOTUS is bound by neither. 010
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 21/09/2026And the role of the tens of millions of dead will be played by tens of millions of dead. 040
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 19/09/2026“there are plenty of *super* intelligent people [in cults]” The gospels were written by intelligent, educated people who could turn a phrase and craft a narrative. Centuries of brainy exertions then followed. Intelligence is compute power, not good sense. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Thanks for bringing a fact into the discourse. Not every issue can be decided by an ad hominem argument. 000
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 12/09/2026This is absolutely the key point. There is nothing particularly secret or proprietary that keeps it within our borders. Maybe we get a few more months before the dream of exceptionalism is punctured yet again.yahoo.comFormer Obama Official Says the U.S. Should Consider Military Strikes On Chinese AI Data CentersCNAS policy report by Jacob Stokes puts kinetic strikes on Chinese AI data centers on Washington's official AGI war-gaming menu. 011
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 12/09/2026It's all based on the weird supposition that the Dems can't get their own supporters to go to the polls. 050
hquain @hquain.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Why "nation" as the unit of fellow-feeling? It's "open to predation" -- wide open. Simple humanity is enough to drive it. Must we behave as perpetual children? 110
