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Travicissitudes

@leitko.bsky.social
381 followers 607 following 685 posts

Paralyzed by the enormity of it all, but I like you. Keep it up.

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The Fig Economy @figgityfigs.bsky.social · 1h
The rural man loves two things above all else: 1) Limited government that stays out of our business 2) The ability to point the limited government like a gun at a neighbor who doesn’t mow their lawn with the fanatical zeal of a retiree with a riding mower and no hobbies who hates his wife
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Chris “OH NO! DISASTER! WHAT A BAD IDEA!” Dobbertean @bracketdobber.net · 3h
Is this bad? Seems kinda bad!
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Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 7h
There is a moment at the very very end of Abdul El-Sayed's podcast with Ezra Klein (book recommendation section) where he talks about the idea of "speaking truth to pain" and this will be staying with me for an extremely long time. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/o...
But there’s also something about truth to pain. We talk a lot about truth to power, but I think it’s actually a lot harder to speak truth to pain. I say that as someone who went to medical school, realizing that in a lot of our politics right now, we’ve got to get a lot better at speaking truth to pain if we’re going to get through some of these challenges that we have.

What does “truth to pain” mean?

It’s one thing to look power in the eye and say: You’re wrong about this. But there’s a way in which pain is very difficult to reason with. Because when somebody is in their pain, they’re in their trauma. They see that pain, and they may not see what’s causing it.

I remember just very explicitly being in a trauma ward with a gunshot wound patient and watching this big guy with his hand on his gunshot wound. All the folks are trying to pull his hand off his pain, that point of his gunshot wound, this clear vulnerability.

And this emergency room doctor had the presence of mind to be like: Everyone, stop. And she looks him in the eyes, and she’s like: I get that really hurts, and I’m so sorry that you’re here. You don’t want to be here. We don’t want you to be here. But if you don’t let us fix this, you could die. So I’m going to take your hand, and I’m going to move it off, OK? Because I need to get there so that you can live.

She was speaking truth to pain. He understands he’s at the hospital, he needs care, but he also doesn’t want anybody to touch the wound. Which is a natural thing. And I think it is a really great metaphor for how we think about a lot of these challenges we talked about today.
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amy brown @amybrown.xyz · 7h
remember to block @m-tracey.bsky.social and move on. there is nothing you can say to him that will be crueler than his lonely little life
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shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 19h
i thought about this old tweet tonight and how nothing has ever aged better
@Merman_Melville • Jan 24, 2019
Being a billionaire must be insane. You can buy new teeth, new skin. All your chairs cost 20,000 dollars and weigh 2,000 pounds. Your life is just a series of your own preferences. In terms of cognitive impairment it's probably like being kicked in the head by a horse every day
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Patrick Monahan @pattymo.com · 19h
The “super intelligence” thing is useful in the sense that if someone calls AI that you know you are dealing with a TURBO bozo
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
strongly agreed. fines and criminal penalties should not merely communicate a finger wag but actually change the strategic situation of a would-be white collar criminal
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Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I'm categorized as an AI subscriber, because I'm subscribed to the 3 TB tier of Google Drive and and they literally just changed the name of the plan to "Google AI Plus." Those "AI subscriber" numbers are 100 percent juiced and phony, and you're a sucker if you believe otherwise.
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southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Making fundamental due process rights a nullity with the emergency docket (again)
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
And once again, real harms imposed on real people must be set aside until after real damage is done in order to privilege the unproven right of Trump to impose those harms
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Patrick Wyman @patrickwyman.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I talk about this a lot in "Lost Worlds" - the world didn't begin with people alive today, and it won't end with people today. Apocalypticism is a wonderful way of making it so you don't have to think about the real long-term consequences of your actions. If it's all going to end, why think further?
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William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
In the interest of transparency, my patron is Drogmœth, Lord Of Strife, and I am granted boons for advancing his agenda on this plane. I don’t believe this impacts my reporting, but I believe in full disclosure.
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Federal Bureau Of Controlling The Run @swolecialism.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
one of the disconcerting things about all this is finding out how many people appear to be desperately seeking someone to do their thinking for them. i sincerely don't get it.
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Mikhail Gorbaechev @mikhailgorbaechev.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
People are also upset about non-economic things that get expressed in economic terms, like the fact that everything seems wildly out of control and we have a maniac in charge of the country
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
New, from me: Once memory-holed, DOGE is now the subject of revisionism. To better understand why DOGE failed, I talked to people in the civic tech movement that DOGE displaced, who continue to offer the alternative model for how to modernize govt. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/doge-vs-ci...
donmoynihan.substack.com
DOGE vs. Civic Tech
As DOGE revisionism picks up, a contrast with the civic tech movement it displaced illuminates its failure
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Cooper Lund @cooperlund.online · 28/09/2026
Hey I don’t think it’s a good thing that Bernie Sanders keeps talking to this guy
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ceej @ceej.online · 27/09/2026
over the next few years you are going to see kids posting infinite variations of “millennials always wait until the end of the transaction to scan their card 🙄” and it is your sacred duty to not let that turn you into a turbochud
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#StupidSuez @diplomatofnight.com · 28/09/2026
Any analysis of the Iran War that doesn't start and end with the fact that an entire cottage industry of think tankers and lobbyists and their friends in Congress were frothing at the mouth for literal decades for this got exactly what they wanted and it failed immediately and totally is wrong.
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Cannonball Adderall @echoloop.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
The institutions involved here—businesses, universities, law firms, etc—need to take a hard look at their leadership in the wake of such a massive strategic miscalculation. To paraphrase Anton Chigurh: If the leaders you followed brought you to this, of what use are those leaders?
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more mr. nice guy @juniorhoncho.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
remember how people debated if the dog in Good Boy was an actor? and its owner went, No of course not, he just follows instructions well. this is like that except Tilly Norwood hasn't been in a movie and the owner is saying, Yes of course, because it follows instructions well, and then it doesn't
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Sean Aitchison @sean8urson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
the latter is usually worse and harder
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cait (and adonis) @cait.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
they are going to come for your contraception, it is literally only a matter of time. I just replaced my IUD and if you think any of the long-term methods of contraception would be a good fit for you and/or your partner, now is the time to do it
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Brendel @brendelbored.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Cookies do enhance my user experience but the only place that actually says that is on the computer where it doesn’t
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Travicissitudes @leitko.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
To be clear, blaming the Iran war is *their* explanation. They still believe the fascist domestic policy is good and would be popular. They are already trying to frame the narrative for why they're going to lose in November.
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I Travel Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 25/09/2026
The reason they keep running the same play is they keep getting exactly what they want.
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rev. howard arson @theophite.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
it is genuinely obscene that prior to this point it was considered good for american democracy that nixon and reagan were never prosecuted
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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The thing about all these genAI fuckwits like Jensen Huang constantly announcing in public that they don't know basic life skills, is that they are billionaires. They have outsourced *every single* hassle in life. They then attribute their soft babylike life to genAI and not their wealth.
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Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
this is an instructive situation - if you hadn’t clocked taylor lorenz as a grifter and a hack long ago, you need to hone your moron radar
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Liv Agar @livagar.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It's remarkable how many times i've seen a Professional Take Haver on the internet go insane as a result of online criticism that starts off unreasonable but becomes increasingly more reasonable as it makes them lose their mind
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mivven @ghostsghouls.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
It cannot be overstated how much Bret does not make an argument in this column. He does not list a single worthy book he thinks was excluded. He clearly has not read the vast majority of the books. His entire critique is just “these books are written by women and minorities, which is bad”.
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wkash917 @wkash917.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Putting today's AI Investment boom in historic perspective...and its impact on electronics prices. www.wsj.com/economy/the-...
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Incredible. First Secretary Mullin claimed that DHS had identified 15,903 noncitizens on Nevada’s voter roll. Then DHS officials told a skeptical Nevada, no no no, that’s just people we flagged. Here are the names of 185 people we KNOW aren’t citizens. All 185 were citizens. DHS got 100% wrong.
When the Department of Homeland Security sent Nevada a list of 185 names last month that it claimed identified noncitizens who had been improperly allowed to register to vote, state election officials got to work.
On Tuesday, the state sent a strongly worded rebuke to the federal government: Every single person on the list was a lawful citizen.
"As for the 185 individuals, our records indicate that they were citizens," Greg D. Ott, a deputy attorney general in Nevada, wrote, according to a copy of a letter sent to Department of Homeland Security officials obtained through open records requests.
"You have provided nothing of substance to suggest otherwise."Following the meeting, Ms. Vogt sent a clarifying email to Nevada officials. "I also wanted to be sure I clarified that we did not reduce the 15,903 to 185," she wrote. "We've manually reviewed some of the 15,903 and confirmed 185 are not U.S. Citizens."
Now, Nevada officials are saying even that 185 number is wrong. They also took issue with a letter D.H.S. sent them in early September, in which the agency reiterated its initial claims about nearly 16,000 noncitizens on the rolls and pressured state officials to review each case in a letter to Nevada officials in early September.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Most people have no idea how much international students are the lifeblood of higher education. But they’re about to learn. Sigh.
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Jess Fink🍉🌈 @jessfink.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
There's a type of fine artist who especially exists in academics, who hates narrative in art. They believe that any art that's trying to tell a story is a kind of propaganda. That shit is wild to me. Telling each other stories is one of the most ancient things we do.
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Read this: is is from the chair of outside advisors of the Iowa civics center imposed on campus. He thinks he is describing current faculty but he is perfectly describing himself and his fellow travelers
"I think there's a fundamental tension," Lowery told Inside Higher Ed. "We've had a sort of ideological takeover of the universities where you have ideological administrators hiring ideological faculty and they will do everything they can to prevent other ideas from being represented on campus."
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Rodger Sherman @rodger.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Tough competition of course, but the Trump admin deciding that white South Africans are the only group of people on earth currently worthy of refugee status has to be the most overtly racist thing any administration has done in decades
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Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · 23/09/2026
Regulators should shut this down before it leads to a wave of predictable, preventable deaths by suicide.
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Gerry Doyle @mgerrydoyle.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
"briefly detained" a process that required hospitalization afterward
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Pete Fraser @petefrasermusic.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Not being able to buy your way out of ads is almost the ultimate in enshittification of television.
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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The worst thing we've done is made fame a middle class job, instead of the toxic runoff of actual accomplishment.
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rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
being properly open-minded doesn’t mean shrugging every time you encounter a fucked up viewpoint and saying you guess it takes all kinds. it means interrogating the viewpoints you encounter and deciding whether they’re fucked up. being thoughtful and interested but ultimately making a firm call
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 20/09/2026
in addition to devaluing one of the great human virtues, the premise isn’t even true! curiosity for its own sake, love of learning, wide reading and experience, these are super useful in the job market!!
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Conor @ernekid.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Purging the Consultant class is the biggest challenge facing the left.
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Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 17/09/2026
This piece on how companies (and yes, this applies to higher education) getting rid of middle managers may backfire is well worth your time to read. If the positions are viewed as being too risky to take, there goes your leadership pipeline. www.wsj.com/lifestyle/ca...
Middle managers often act as informal therapists for their direct reports. The good ones are attuned to what motivates people on their teams and who works well with whom. They also serve as executive whisperers, translating the goals and strategies from bosses on high, while also acting as buffers for those higher up the ladder, sparing executives the headaches of petty issues. 

Leaders who expect AI to free them to concentrate on major initiatives will ultimately inherit the personnel dramas and small decisions that deputies used to take off their plates. They may also find their grand plans don’t get executed when there are no rallying forces at the team level.

Get ready for the in-demand middle managers’ comeback tour in a few years’ time. The only question is, when companies realize they cut too deeply, will there be enough bosses willing and able to step up?
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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
"This election is about the threat of trans kids" is the worst possible messaging for Dems yet so many candidates are leaning into it. No voter will flip R->D over it. Low-info voters read this as "you're focused on bullshit that doesn't affect me" while the base reads this as "you're an asshole."
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Ben Kuchera @benkuchera.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
If you're a young director working in horror or horror adjacent topics with even a small online following Hollywood wants to hear from you right now. This is like when Nirvana got huge and every weird band was suddenly on a label.
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Trevon Logan @trevondlogan.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
It’s amazing how the media cooperates to make some issues salient and completely ignores others. We went from North Carolina being protested against for an anti-trans bathroom bill in 2016 to now every politician being asked their position on a dozen or so athletes in ALL of K-16.
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Comic Book Yeti @comicbookyeti.com · 20/09/2026
Josh Johnson is doing more right now to promote comics with a guerrilla styled social media campaign going city to city than any amount of big ad expenditure ever could. There are so many lessons to learn here.
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Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ @padresj.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
It's strange how Democratic Socialists - who are being denounced by both parties - turned major deficits into balanced budgets in both New York and Seattle.
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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
every day of my life I think about the people using “she” to describe this computer program who still need to be convinced to use it for trans women
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