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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 26/05/2026

Massive “Glory to Ukraine” mural! In my home suburb, Severna Park MD.

Green-grass slope with atop it a Glory to Ukraine mural/ billboard that is roughly 20 feet tall and 40 or 50 feet wide. Dominant colors are yellow and blue.

Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 05/05/2026

@schumer.senate.gov @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social I sincerely hope that we don’t hear anything more from congressional democratic leadership about “working with our republican colleagues.”

Whitehouse Truth Social post with AI picture of Schumer and Jeffries in sombreros and saying that they love illegal immigrants.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 24/04/2026

Learned the word “ombré” today!

Wikipedia page defining ombré: A Ombré /ˈɒmbreɪ/ (literally "shaded" in French) is the blending of one color hue to another, usually moving tints and shades from light to dark.[1] It has become a popular feature for hair coloring, nail art, and even baking, in addition to its uses in home decorating and graphic design.[2]

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 13/03/2026

Bret “Bed Bug” Stephens is a powerful contrarian indicator, and so his optimism is deeply concerning. I think the basic issue is this: What if when Trump says “okay we’re done fighting,” the Iranians respond with “no, we are not done fighting.”

Bret Stephens, columnist: I'm flabbergasted by the relentless pessimism I'm seeing in much of the commentariat. We are less than two weeks into a war that will almost surely be over by the end of the month, and already there are predictions that it's "an-other Iraq.* American casualties, heartbreaking as they are, have been minor for a conflict of this scale, Iran's ability to threaten its neighbors diminishes by the day:
We've seen this in the sharp decline in its ballistic missile and drone attacks. I have to assume that before this war is over, we will find a way to remove Iran's remaining stores of highly enriched uranium, which greatly enhances global security over the long term. And Iran's leaders now know they are not immune from reprisal, which will make them think more carefully as they plot their retaliation. We may not see regime change now, but this regime is likely to become a zombie state before the next, all-but-inevitable, popular uprising.
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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 02/03/2026

Never fight a land war in Asia.

en.wiktionary.org

Attributed to various military leaders, including Bernard Montgomery, Dwight Eisenhower and Douglas MacArthur, the quotation has existed in various forms since the Second World War. It was popularized when used by the character Vizzini in the 1987 movie The Princess Bride (after appearing in the 1973 novel The Princess Bride). Asia is far more heavily populated than Europe or North America, and while Western armies had technological advantades post-WWIl,

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 16/01/2026

WOW. Welcome back. Both funny and taught me something. 💛

Gemini explaining difference between cisalpine Gauls and transalpine Gauls. (Which I did not previously know.)

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 16/01/2026

ICE? No. That’s Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is a designated terrorist organization. @gavinnewsom.bsky.social

Photograph of Iran’s IRGC, which is a designated terrorist organization, wearing masks and fatigues and looking very much like ICE agents.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 31/12/2025

Important to keep in perspective the portion of U.S. government revenue that comes from tariffs. (It’s that little blue bit at the bottom right.) The tariffs would have to increase something like ten fold before they’d meaningfully address the government deficit.

Graph comparing U.S. government revenue from tariffs to revenue from other sources.

The portion of revenue that comes from tariffs is so small you can barely even see it.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 19/12/2025

To me the most likely explanation for Pres Trump’s cognitive decline:

Google, saying that congestive heart failure reduces blood flow to the brain, causing cognitive decline.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 05/10/2025

What Stephen Miller is going to look like by the end of Trump’s term

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 02/10/2025

Jack Dorsey left BlueSky (a good while ago) because, he said, it was becoming too much like Twitter. Jack Dorsey is human, and therefore imperfect, but he is also no dummy.

Wikipedia’s Jack Dorsey page:

Bluesky
In February 2022, Dorsey joined the board of directors 751 of Bluesky, a Twitter spin-off developing a decentralized social networking protocol and app. 1761 177) In May 2024, he announced he was no longer on the board of directors. 1781 1791 1801 He instead endorsed X, which he called "freedom technology". 181) In a 2024 interview, Dorsey said that Bluesky's shift toward a traditional corporate structure and the introduction of centralized moderation tools were major factors behind his leaving the company. [82]
Digital currency
Dorsey is one of the few persons who are speculated to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 01/10/2025

Furthermore, he struggles to not pee his pants from all the ketamine.

From Wikipedia:

Urinary and liver toxicity
Urinary toxicity occurs primarily in people who use large amounts of ketamine routinely, with 20-30% of frequent users having bladder complaints. 281 1751 It includes a range of disorders from cystitis to hydronephrosis to kidney failure. 1761 The typical symptoms of ketamine-induced cystitis are frequent urination, dysuria, and urinary urgency sometimes accompanied by pain during urination and blood in urine. 1771
The damage to the bladder wall has similarities to both interstitial and
eosinophilic cystitis. The wall is thickened and the functional bladder capacity is as low as 10-150 mL. 761 Studies indicate that ketamine-induced cystitis is caused by ketamine and its metabolites directly interacting with urothelium, resulting in damage of the epithelial cells of the bladder lining and increased permeability of the urothelial barrier which results in clinical symptoms. 781
Management of ketamine-induced cystitis involves ketamine cessation as the first sten.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 06/09/2025

That is a stunningly good first sentence.

Picture of the first page of John Green’s novel The Fault in Our Stars, with the first sentence: “Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.”

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 04/09/2025

Quintessential monopolist pricing here by Google. @newsfromgoogle.bsky.social

Google newspaper advertisement with big main text “Bringing the best of Google Gemini and AI training to every college student in America for free.”

With footnote text “Automatically renews at $19.99 / month after trial. Cancel anytime.”

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 08/08/2025

Kevin Plank, financial genius.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 08/07/2025

It amuses me how Trump’s (fake) orangeness makes Netanyahu’s (real) paleness come across as a deathly pallor.

Photograph of Trump and Netanyahu, in which Netanyahu looks extremely pale.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 04/07/2025

Perhaps the best writing i have ever read.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell.

On these pages, Hamnet gives his life for his twin sister Judith.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 20/04/2025

From Sons and Daughters by Chaim Grade. “If someone [like Trump] feels a need to portray himself as a crazy person, he’s definitely a crazy person.” en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaim_G...

Quote from the book Sons and Daughters by Chaim Grade: “If someone feels a need to portray himself as a crazy person," she remarked, "he's definitely a crazy person."

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 11/04/2025

Historically accurate picture of Jesus Christ:

Picture of a man with dark brown hair, beard, and mustache, with dark olive skin.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 02/03/2025

“Do not be indifferent when you see historical lies.” Such as the lie that Ukraine was the aggressor. I don’t think it is a coincidence—through the lens of humankind’s psychology—that fascism is rising as the last of the holocaust survivors are dying.

NYT obituary for holocaust survivor Marian Turski, who died at 98 years old, quoting him as saying “Do not be indifferent to historical lies.”

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 21/02/2025

Vice President Vance is wrong here. The Ukrainians don’t need a credible path to victory. They just need a credible path to not losing (like the Vietnamese did against the French and then against us for example). And, because the Ukrainians have that, VP Vance’s entire position falls apart.

VP Vance TruthSocial post: 1) On the general background, yes, you have been more right than wrong on a lot of the details of the conflict. Which is why I'm surprised to hear you call the administration's posture "appeasement." We are negotiating to end the conflict. It is "appeasement" only if you think the Ukrainians have a credible pathway to victory. They don't, so it's not.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 13/02/2025

Amazon demonstrating the vaunted efficiency of the private sector. (Q: So why is Amazon’s stock price so high then? A: It’s a bubble.)

Screenshot of WSJ article (“Inside Amazon's Messy Push to Bring Everyone Back to the Office
The five-day policy dials back flexibility that predated the pandemic; employees are returning to find they have no desks, not enough parking and still endless virtual meetings.”)

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 09/02/2025

Such stubby little fingers. (Yes, am aware it’s AI. But to me it’s still quite funny🙂)

AI picture of himself that Trump posted on TruthSocial. He is “conducting” the Kennedy Center orchestra. From afar he looks okay, but if you zoom in the AI details are horrid.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 08/02/2025

Do NOT like that Fetterman did this, but DO like that it makes Netanyahu look like a midget.

Posed picture of John Fetterman and Netanyahu smiling and giving thumbs-ups to the camera, with a backdrop of US and Israel flags.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 07/02/2025

Mark it down: Today’s employment report, for Jan 2025 and the last of the Biden admin, was a SOLID one. In other words, Trump has no excuse. The economy was in good shape when he was handed the baton.

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 143,000 in January, and the
unemployment rate edged down to 4.0 percent, the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, retail trade, and social assistance.
Employment declined in the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction industry.
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised up by 49,000, from +212,000 to +261,000, and the change for December was revised up by 51,000, from +256,000 to +307,000. With these revisions, employment in November and December combined is 100,000 higher than previously reported.

calculatedriskblog.com

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 05/02/2025

Of course this is utter, loop-di-loop insanity. But it is nonetheless quite wonderful that Netanyahu is visibly shitting his pants.

Screenshot of NYT saying that Trump says the U.S. is going to take over Gaza. With photograph of Trump and Netanyahu at podiums. And Netanyahu looking well aware that he’s no longer in the driver’s seat of the car.

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 01/02/2025

Any “federal debt” alarums that don’t bold font RAISING TAXES on rich people should be snorted at and rejected out of hand. @nytimes.com

NYT debt scare article highlighting “proposed remedies to constrain spending”

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Joe Baressi @jbaressi.northsky.social · 24/01/2025

Earth’s population has also more than doubled. Earth’s population was 3 billion people in 1960 and is just over 8 billion now.

Picture of NYT “fact of interest” stating that the Mediterranean’s population has more than doubled since the 1960s.

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