John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 2hLast night I had a horror movie dream and George Clooney was the lead. He seemed miscast. My dream was more Bruce Campbell, felt like. 010
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 4hStoicism is like libertarianism. A fine philosophy but 99 out of a 100 cases are vavilovian mimicry in the field of ideas. A weed selected to look like a crop plant you would want. People with easy lives want to look like they are made of stern stuff. Would-be oppressors want to look liberty-loving. 182
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 4hThere was some cartoonist who drew knock-kneed businessmen exactly like that in the 70’s. I swear I’ve seen it. 110
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 5hNovels are only interesting if people are important. If they matter - the way they live their lives and develop, learn and change. From JS Mill, “On Liberty”, from a while ago. 3120
Reposted by John HolboSpokane Rising @spokanerising.com · 29/09/2026Send Stephen Miller to The Hague. 21074352422
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 21hListened to the Know Your Enemy podcast episode on Endtimes Fascism with Klein & Taylor. Really striking how the thesis is: they are Sarucons. Their plan seems to involve immediate destruction of the livable world. It’s eucatastrophe - without the ‘eu’. There is no ME in eu! I got mine! How long? 111
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I haven’t heard “Choosin’ Texas” but the word on the street is it’s about her ex-boyfriend. I have heard the new Taylor Swift, “Patient Zero”. I wonder how Travis K feels about his wife still always writing songs about her bad choices in ex-boyfriends. Like, what is he? Chopped liver? 140
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Don’t be stupid, be a smarty, join - then leave - the Nazi party. To adapt Orwell, if you want a picture of the future, imagine a reboot stomping on a human face, forever, of “The Producers” as ‘The Podcast producers’. You figure a horrible thing can’t fail & you are right & it turns out horrible. 061
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 28/09/2026“The first Sauron administration got a lot done & - Isildur’s Bane. That was what they called it remember. It wasn’t so much that Sauron was the Lord of the Ring. Men were weak, as even establishment liberals like Elrod admitted So you couldn’t blame Sauron who was very much an outsider politician … 1113
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 27/09/2026Saruman on Sauron: “There are a lot of things I got wrong... was crazier than I thought. It was more dangerous than I thought.” “You wish he’d ensnared more competent Nazgûl.” “administration is… staffed by not very smart but very loyal orcs. One ring to rule them all maybe overcorrected for …” 4285
Reposted by John HolboRadley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 26/09/2026I feel you, Daniel L 434354669
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Peter Max died. An artist like Max invites mixed feelings. He invented a distinctive & appealing graphic style - a little signature style language. And it’s easy to do! He is very easy to imitate, to copy. So it’s easy to see him as just endless knockoffs of himself. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/a...nytimes.comPeter Max, Trippy Artist of Counterculture Era and Beyond, Dies at 88With work that breathed the spirit of the 1960s, he became fabulously wealthy from licensing his paintings and posters in all their euphoric Day-Glo glory. 151
Reposted by John HolboNothings Monstered @nothingsmonstrd.bsky.social · 26/09/2026My phone's speech-to-text software is still trying to make me sound like Gertrude Stein: "Two gray two gray rats crawling over two gray rats crawling over two big two big radishes one white one red all this all this on a black all this on a black background" 0111
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 24/09/2026This is a cool Johnny Appleseedsofseeds story. There should be a guy who goes around figuring out what seeds seeded all the seeds spread around. There is. www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...scientificamerican.comHow apple detectives solved the mystery of an ancient tree—and rewrote the history of fruitAnd how they might have helped save the future of American apples 151
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Descartes’ theory that animals are mere machines ftw. Dennett’s ‘intentional stance’ takes the L. The Associated Press has solved philosophy of mind, by style convention. Thank you for your attention to this matter. 091
Reposted by John HolboAsawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 24/09/2026In assessing the similarities of the bush era and the trump presidency I have to catch myself when I say bush had a torture scandal; trump only yearned to do the torture that bush did. I catch myself because trump clearly has a widespread torture scandal rn 2725
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 24/09/2026A photographer from an antique land Who showed: Three vast and handless fingers, stony Clawing in the ground, like some Addamic Thing, Grown vast, then buried, now crawled forth ... 141
Reposted by John HolboThomas Ragon @thomasragon.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Jaroslav Panuška (1872-1958) 17823
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 24/09/2026I would watch the heck out of a Columbo episode in which interviews 20 bears. 3216
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 24/09/2026This is correct. Listen to the episode in which he interviews his brother, Buckley. It’s all about how disappointed they are with Trump, and their disappointment is all about, e.g. how Trump failed to vigorously respond to the theft of the 2020 election. Impeach Trump for insufficient Trumpiness. 060
Reposted by John HolboRob Beschizza @beschizza.com · 23/09/2026The time is nearly perfect for a movie about the famously chaotic and dramatic 1976 production of Star Wars, starring Ewan McGregor as Alec Guinness and Hayden Christiansen as David Prowse. 251265217
Reposted by John HolboPema Levy @pemalevy.bsky.social · 16/09/2026The Supreme Court rules over us, with 5 unelected judges wiping out legislation passed by the people's representatives. Is this how democracy is supposed to work? Two new books argue the court seized power it was never intended to have. And how to take it back. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...motherjones.comHow the Supreme Court seized power to rule over the rest of usA false mythology put the justices on top. The people could knock them down. 918385
Reposted by John HolboAaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026The video shows the agents literally just leaving the guy in the street and driving off. 552596992
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 22/09/2026I urge the wallet inspector, in future, not to abuse the power of his office, lest trust in that office decline. 1140
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Only just realised there were two Swiss theologian Lavaters who wrote extensively about contemporary reports of miracles. One argued they were illusions, or the work of demons. The other - his descendant - argued they constitute vital, empirical evidence of the reality of divine powers. Confusing. 270
Reposted by John Holbopmamtraveller.bsky.social @pmamtraveller.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Yemeni Anthropomorphic Stele (3rd–1st Century BCE) 1184121894
Reposted by John HolboAlex Jaffe “Alex Jaffe” Alex Jaffe @alexjaffe.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Mystery solved! All three of these costumes are from 1979’s Batman #312 — and all worn by Calendar Man, who goes on a week long crime spree in different costumes themed to each day. Pictured: Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. 2202
Reposted by John HolboJournal of Art in Society @artinsociety.bsky.social · 21/09/2026I’ve posted this painting before, but it's still a mystery ~ no-one really knows what’s going on, but everyone seems to have a firm view about it! So, is she waving to the spectral child outside, or warning her, or maybe something else? ~ Jacobus Vrel's ‘Woman at a Window’ (1650) 2324634
Reposted by John HolboEric Orchard @inkybat.bsky.social · 21/09/2026My favourite Peake art is his detailed pen and ink stuff. 3558
Reposted by John HolboDon Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 21/09/2026New from Lauren Supplee at Can We Still Govern? The US government had gradually become better at producing and using evidence. This evidence-based infrastructure is largely invisible, important, and one more thing gutted by Trump. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-system...donmoynihan.substack.comThe System for Using Evidence to Improve Federal Programs Has Been GuttedHere’s How We Fix It 3468181
Reposted by John HolboJulian Sanchez @normative.bsky.social · 21/09/2026This is in some ways at the heart of our political dysfunction. For a lot of folks, so long as the basic civic infrastructure keeps (kept?) humming along, they don’t feel much personal effect from electoral politics, so it becomes a kind of entertainment & mode of self-expression. 1119343
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 20/09/2026This would be stupid not funny but this guy has spent the last few months complaining regularly that libs, on pain of being stupid, owe regular arguments for why the 19A should NOT be revoked - arguments responsive to arguments against women's suffrage he alleges exist but has not seen fit to share. 020
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 20/09/2026It’s really annoying that the world is a trolley problem in which the runaway trolleys are Chinese rooms and also the switches to control the trolleys, to decide which people get run over by them, are just yet more runaway Chinese rooms on wheels. 160
Reposted by John HolboMichael Bench-Capon @mikebenchcapon.bsky.social · 21/07/2026Machine consciousness is a perplexing topic because on the one hand it's a metaphysical question but on the other hand it actually matters whether or not we get the answer right unlike with mereology or free will or whatever 0103
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 20/09/2026If you imagine a flawed liberal democracy with two major parties alternating in power, the Id Party and the Superego Party - sort of like the US - it’s clear the Id Party is going to do way more effective advocacy group politicking. 261
Reposted by John HolboJohn Scalzi @scalzi.com · 11/04/2026I don't know how to explain to the people who pop up when creatives complain about "AI" to say there are legit uses for it just how much they sound like someone saying "Well actually fire is used to make bread" when people are talking about an organized arson ring burning down their fucking houses 138137304416
John Holbo @jholbo.bsky.social · 19/09/2026The Converse ad is impressive, design-wise, for just how un-missable it is. 000
Reposted by John HolboJournal of Art in Society @artinsociety.bsky.social · 19/09/2026I’ve just come across 19/20C Norwegian painter Asta Nørregaard ~ a very fine portraitist indeed, sometimes likened to John Singer Sargent. Here’s her portrait of high-society figure Elisabeth Fearnley (with polar bearskin) and her own self-portrait 18212