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Iron Orchid

@ironorchid.bsky.social
602 followers 1.4K following 23 posts

Front end web developer with an addiction to flash cards

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Reposted by Iron Orchid
Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 17h
when we published the following years ago, team trump vehemently denied our (accurate) reporting that trump had been privately saying he wanted partial videos of executions for like psa campaigns or some shit www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...
rollingstone.com
Trump Plans to Bring Back Firing Squads, Group Executions if He Retakes White House
The former president wants to expand the use of the death penalty, and expand the federal government's options for carrying out death sentences.
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Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 19h
"hard times make strong men" actually statistical error. Most hard times make starved peasants, who lack the capacity for successful use of force. Swiss Cantons Georg, who lives in a fortress and practices with a pike formation, is an outlier and should not have been counted.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 21h
Universities bring in foreign students ... to undercut the wages of American residents? What? This is exactly backwards. Foreign students subsidize the tuition of American students. I wonder why the VP who follows Nazis online has this all wrong. Probably an innocent, non-racist mistake.
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burn it all down @russbengtson.bsky.social · 21h
the worst thing about reading "nickel and dimed" is realizing absolutely nothing has gotten better for service workers since that was written nearly 30 years ago as the ultrarich have just gotten exponentially wealthier
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GOLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 21h
setting aside that musk is nowhere near this popular, the US is years deep in a pretty massive accountant shortage, a fairly basic fact about the labor market the vice president should know, but doesn’t
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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 21h
If you have ever read a book to a baby, you will realize it's not a linear experience. The baby wants to turn pages backward, wants to ask questions (if they're old enough), wants to examine the pages and get really excited if they can say "bear!" even if the word "bear!" is not on the page.
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Bikepedantic @pedantic.bike · 22h
A Black woman I worked with who took the DRP specifically called it “harm reduction,” and that’s exactly what it was. Civil rights offices were gutted, DEI targeted, RIFs threatened, AI looming… the whole damn thing was engineered to have a disparate impact.
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Gravel Influencer @gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · 22h
Comments like this really expose the entitlement of drivers. They expect to be able to drive to any location of their choosing and park right in front for free. Their convenience is the most important thing. Motonormativity is deeply selfish.
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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 23h
Death of a handyman: ICE cited “convictions for driving with expired vehicle registration” and an unspecified judgment against him in favor of the Maryland comptroller. The 47-year-old Curo-Churata "had volunteered to leave the country on his own, but a judge denied the request."
thebanner.com
Laurel father and husband died in ICE custody in Louisiana
Julián Curo-Churata lived in Laurel for about 17 years before he was detained in June by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. He died in the agency’s custody on Sept. 29.
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Denny Carter @dennycarter.bsky.social · 23h
This is the thing. If AI is supposed to save you time for the things that Really Matter, and reading a book to your baby is not something that Really Matters, then what are you doing? These guys really just want AI to live their lives while they grind Kalshi and Polymarket all day every day.
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𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℍ𝕚𝕤𝕥🎃𝕣𝕪 𝕠𝕗 ℂ𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕒 ℙ💀𝕕𝕔𝕒𝕤𝕥 @thoc.bsky.social · 23h
There are fields, Neo… endless fields, where human beings are no longer born. We are grown. For longest time, I wouldn’t believe it…and then I saw the fields with my own eyes. Watch them liquefy the dead, so they could be fed intravenously to the living…
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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 23h
they did the thing
an october 11 2025 post from me reading: every single tech idea is like “soon our robots will be capable of playing catch with your kid, freeing you up to spend more time working on your employers’ spreadsheets”
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 23h
It’s a nice companion piece to the surprised pikachu “why do some children cut off their parents” punditry that surfaces every few months.
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 23h
It's telling that men would rather try to invent tech to replace humans' role in caregiving than step up as equal partners in parenting. Telling, that is, in that it shows how financial capitalism and patriarchy work together to dissuade men from doing "unprofitable" labor, like the work of care.
X post from AI industry insider Alvin Sng :

My wife: Can you read our baby a book?
Me: I can just play an audiobook from my phone.
My wife: But then it won't be in your voice.
Me: I can train a voice model.
Parenting hits different when you work in Al.
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absolute horses @jcoglan.com · 23h
they've automated raising maladjusted children
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Sanho Tree @sanho.bsky.social · 23h
One of the first things Trump did in Feb. 2017 was set up an office in DHS to *exclusively* publicize crimes committed by immigrants — just as the Nazis used Der Stürmer to publish a special section only highlighting “Jewish crimes.” See this article from 2017: www.thewrap.com/der-sturmer-...
& thewrap.com
But mass-slander-by-anecdote has a long tradition. As The Atlantic explains:
In The Nazi Conscience, Duke historian Claudia Koonz notes that the Nazi newspaper Der Sturmer ran a feature called "Letter Box," which published readers' accounts of Jewish crimes. When the Nazis took power, the German state began doing something similar.
Frustrated by the failure of most Germans to participate in a boycott of Jewish businesses in April 1933, Adolf Hitler's government began publicizing Jewish crime statistics as a way of stoking anti-Semitism.
Trump introduced a new government entity Tuesday that will similarly flag and highlight crimes by illegal immigrants - without, of course, providing any context about how many crimes they commit compared to U.S. citizens, or how illegal immigrants as a group might contribute positively to American society.
"The office is called VOICE - Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement," Trump explained. "We are providing a voice to those who have been ignored by our media, and silenced by special interests."
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Fred, His Enemy Getting a Vote @thefred.bsky.social · 23h
Interesting callback to THE DIAMOND AGE here, where rich parents pay actors to interact with their children through virtual worlds. The appearance and voice of the actor is disguised to match the character, but even so, the emotional bond of a real actor vs a computer is universally understood.
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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 08/10/2026
RFK Jr is a eugenicist and you should not listen to him. Do not drink raw milk.
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Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
lol, have we already reached the "pathologizing completely rational behavior to avoid addressing its actual cause" phase already? It's giving "drapetomania." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drapeto...
en.wikipedia.org
Drapetomania - Wikipedia
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Daniel Burke - 🍺Innkeep @innkeep.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Le Guin on the idea that there is a secret to getting good at writing.
I will dispose of the first myth as quickly as possible. The “secret” is skill. If you haven’t learned how to do something, the people who have may seem to be magicians, possessors of mysterious secrets. In a fairly simple art, such as making pie crust, there are certain teachable “secrets” of method that lead almost infallibly to good results; but in any complex art, such as housekeeping, piano-playing, clothes-making, or story-writing, there are so many techniques, skills, choices of method, so many variables, so many “secrets,” some teachable and some not, that you can learn them only by methodical, repeated, long-continued practice — in other words, by work.
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season of the bitch @m01r4.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
children at private schools do not get better educations, they get more expensive educations, and people’s inability to distinguish the two drives both their posture toward public services and allowing abuse in private institutions.
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Billy Dee Billiams @anothersillyowl.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Hey man, since you don't have anyone else in your orbit with enough sense to tell you this, I'll just let you know that it sucks to brag about being in bed with a war crime company whose CEO is a Trumpist
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Queen of Land @queenofland.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
It's Black History Month in the UK (which is, strangely, rather unremarked upon atm). Queer Black History is also barely discussed or mentioned www.wearequeeraf.com/how-many-mor...
wearequeeraf.com
How many more generations will be denied Black queer history before we take action?
When we understand that our history is diverse, it changes our outlook. I hope that this Black History Month, we all take the time to uncover the history lessons we were denied in school
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Eric Umansky @ericumansky.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
"The federal government is lying to you." "The government has said that ICE does not zip tie or handcuff children." "They’ve denied engaging in racial profiling" "They’ve said the government is not wrongly arresting U.S. citizens." *We found the truth* projects.propublica.org/american-cit....
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Reda 🏳️‍⚧️ @redakin.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Sometimes I feel embarrassed to admit to the toll I feel from having a government that uses slurs for me, as the cis folk around me don't even register it. I want to choke back that embarrassment. This shit matters, and is indeed an impeachable offense.
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Tyler, from the Internet (Haunted) @tylerfromtheinternet.com · 06/10/2026
lmao they are fretting so much about something Democrats SHOULD do but we know they won't.
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A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I’ve been wrong before, and might be wrong now, but I sort of feel like it isn’t necessary or helpful to parse trump’s most deranged utterances and give the the most charitable possible interpretation. There isn’t a clear meaning, there’s almost never a clear meeting, and that’s often on purpose.
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Grudgie the Wail @grudgie.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
All Dem quotes must be twisted into the least generous interpretation ever while all Trump quotes must be tortured into coherence.
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David Greene @davidgreene.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
As the Supreme Court said of Lafayette Park, "Although originally part of the White House grounds, President Jefferson set it aside as a park for the use of residents and visitors" and is in fact "visited by vast numbers of visitors from around the country" and the DC area.
Screenshot from the US Supreme Court case Clark v Community for Creative Non-Violence: "The network of National Parks includes the National Memorial-core parks, Lafayette Park and the Mall, which are set in the heart of Washington, D.C., and which are unique resources that the Federal Government holds in trust for the American people. Lafayette Park is a roughly 7-acre square located across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. Although originally part of the White House grounds, President Jefferson set it aside as a park for the use of residents and visitors. It is a "garden park with a . . . formal landscaping of flowers and trees, with fountains, walks and benches." National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, White House and President's Park, Resource Management Plan 4.3 (1981). The Mall is a stretch of land running westward from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial some two miles away. It includes the Washington Monument, a series of reflecting pools, trees, lawns, and other greenery. It is bordered by, inter alia, the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art. Both the Park and the Mall were included in Major Pierre L'Enfant's original plan for the Capital. Both are visited by vast numbers of visitors from around the country, as well as by large numbers of residents of the Washington metropolitan area."
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 06/10/2026
"Whatever conclusions reached by the commission of an octogenarian crank and two billionaires, they'll be handed off to Hegseth, who believes wars are won by whichever side can do the most pushups, and whose obsession with creating an all-white, all-male military is dragging DoD down by the day."
publicnotice.co
“Project Meridian” is the stuff of satire
Elon Musk, Newt Gingrich, and Palmer Luckey walk into a bar ... and are given the keys to the DoD.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Seems like if you're going to make a national story out of Hasan Piker, who campaigned a few times with the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, saying Israel causes antisemitism, you should also make a national story out of the favorite intellectual of the US Vice President supporting Hitler.
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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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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 06/10/2026
It's TRYING beanie season! Get yers!! shop.dansinker.com/products/try...
shop.dansinker.com
TRYING Beanie
NOW AVAILABLE IN TWO COLORS: Olive & Maroon It is cold, times are hard, and you are doing everything you can.  Put a hat on your head that says TRYING. Made by pals, this beanie is available in ol...
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Oliver Willis @owillis.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
We’ve been hearing for 20 years plus how we should just sit down and have a meal with people who think black, Latino and LGBTQ people are subhumans who must be killed. No.
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Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
To expand on this: Bigotry isn't a result of an innocent misunderstanding, or not having all the facts. It's not a choice made rationally, defeated with a rational argument. Bigotry is a self-protective, foundational belief used to help make the world make sense to them. Debate won't change that.
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Meg Elison @megelison.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Please remember that for every VE Schwab and Stephen King, there are a lot of banned Black, queer, and POC writers you've never heard of, to whom it is maybe not a badge of honor but a denial of their voice. Being banned is not a marketing opportunity, unless one is already rich.
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NachoManSandyCabbage @treebeerd.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
So I made a comic about my struggle with depression. It was a tough one but I feel loads better now that I've got it out of my system. I hope you may be able to find hope in it if you're struggling. treebeerdstuff.com/2026/10/05/d...
treebeerdstuff.com
DEPRESSION
A comic about depression.
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Sarah Archer @sarcher.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Also essential to remember that she was an openly trans faculty member at Swarthmore in *1971*
The renaissance scholar Kaori Kitao in her office in the 1970s; she has wavy hair pulled back and a floral top, wearing dark framed glasses
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Monteiro @monteiro.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Looking for the perfect gift to put in your beloved’s Bela Lugosi stocking this Halloween? I got you! What could be better than my new book, How to die (and other stories)? It’s spine-curdling! www.mulebooks.com/store/how-to...
A very stupid diorama containing my book, a giant green chocolate Frankenstein head, and a green Jimothy. All laying on pink peanut hearts.
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Just a reminder: Tillis persuaded the woman Hegseth allegedly raped to come forward with her story, and told her that if she did, it would sink the nomination. She did. At great risk to herself. Tillis then cast the deciding vote for Hegseth. Because he’s a goddamned coward.
ms.now
Outgoing Sen. Tillis regrets pivotal vote for Hegseth: ‘He’s an actor. He’s not a manager’
Outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis spoke to MS NOW about regretting his vote to confirm Pete Hegseth and his strained relationship with Trump.
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Walter Olson @walterolson.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
"South Korea has already run the experiment. Its law requires the National Assembly to vote on presidential impeachment by anonymous ballot, and that rule has now removed two presidents." [@andycraig.bsky.social]
theunpopulist.net
A Democratic Senate Should Adopt Secret Impeachment Ballots on a Priority Basis
Such a change, requiring no constitutional amendment, would free senators to vote their judgment instead of their fears
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🗽LOLGOP🗽 @lolgop.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Feels remarkably similar to people discussing Elon, who literally condemned 14 million to death out of obvious fascist racism. But the difference here is that America, the government, is in business with this man. We should not have to explain why that must end immediately.
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Anna Lind-Guzik @alindguzik.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Hard to think of anything less abstract and more materially consequential than being pregnant
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Wonkette @wonkettemedia.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Dennis Hastert Dies, Was Somehow Not Dead This Whole Time by @brooklynmarie.bsky.social
wonkette.com
Dennis Hastert Dies, Was Somehow Not Dead This Whole Time
Well, time to do some research about his life.
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Stephan Krosecz @stephank.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Kinda basic question: Who decides when a dictator is "benevolent" and in a dictatorship who gets to say otherwise?
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John Washington @jwashing.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
BREAKING: Border Patrol raids tree sit in Southern Arizona, making at least 9 arrests and cutting down ancient cottonwood tree. latest from @lookoutnews.bsky.social www.lookoutnews.org/breaking-bor...
lookoutnews.org
BREAKING: Border Patrol Arrests Tree Sitters, Cuts Down ‘Grandmother’ Cottonwood
Border Patrol agents arrested at least eight people protecting the tree Monday morning before cutting it down, ending a months-long protest that had halted border wall construction in the area.
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A.R. Moxon @juliusgoat.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Hey, I’m just asking questions. Ignorant questions, bigoted questions, questions that have been repeatedly answered for many years. Sorry, but I’m not listening to answers right now; I’m far too busy asking questions. It’s called being intellectually curious.
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Monteiro @monteiro.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
“You should be ok with me killing children because I’m trying to get really fucking rich.” www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
Accept ‘bad things’ in return for benefits of AI, says Sam Altman
Boss of OpenAI calls for a regulatory light touch because of the ‘good stuff’ the technology can deliver
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