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Michael Zaharis

@michaelzaharis1.bsky.social
402 followers 1.1K following 359 posts

Aerospace, motorsport, informed opinion

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Reposted by Michael Zaharis
Diedrich Bader @diedrichbader.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
When my son was 5 he had a sartorial flair To go to arts delicatessen he wore a midnight blue cape, top hat &monocle As we were leaving an older gent stopped him saying “young man, i like your style” Meant the world to our son that man was Bob Mackie RIP
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David S. F. Portree @dsfpspacefl1ght.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
- 1100 flights per year - ramjet-powered single-stage-to-orbit spaceplane - meant to launch over 30 years components, assembly facilities, assembly crews, and logistics for a constellation of 60 half-million-ton space-assembled solar power satellites in GEO - they knew how to think big in the 1970s
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Talia al Ghoul 🏳️‍⚧️ @usili.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
Oh my gd, the Artemis II crew doing a parody of a bad 1980s sitcom intro from in space. Source: www.instagram.com/p/DWwuHPfCZ8Z/
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Hoodlum 🇺🇸 @nothoodlum.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
“Ah, just one more thing, sir. You’re blowing up those boats, saying they’re filled with drugs headed for the US. But then you go and pardon the guy who brought in 400 tons of cocaine. That’s billions of doses. Help me understand that.”
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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
hey guys i made a seasonal meme
Meme: Straight ahead: Pausing to consider the meaning of Cohen's lyrics
Everyone, for some reason, takes the exit towards Singing "Hallelujah" again in religious contexts
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Michael Zaharis @michaelzaharis1.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
I visited the 100" telescope at Mt. Wilson it a couple years back, where I believe this photo was taken. It was very moving to see the telescope that, maybe more than any other since Galileo's first crude one, told us of our place in the universe.
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Fionna O’Leary @fascinatorfun.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Northern Ireland man from Lisburn kidnapped by Trump’s Ice raids because he “looked like a Mexican”. He had the correct visa, all his documents. He’s never been in trouble with police. Held in terrible conditions. A fellow captive couldn’t get his medication and dropped dead of a heart attack
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Dennis Detwiller @drgonzo123.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Evolution (abridged)
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Julia Ioffe @juliaioffe.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
My parents took me out of a country where this was the norm and where it led to the execution and imprisonment of millions of innocent people. They brought me here, to America, believing that it would not happen here. And yet here we are.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
The White House Press Secretary, the official spokesperson for the Trump administration, told reporters in an official briefing that the president wants to invade "every Democrat-run city" with troops. Any media still pretending that this is about "crime" is making a conscious choice to lie to you.
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Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 30/08/2025
As we all know, the American Revolution was fought to ensure the chief executive could impose taxes without representation.
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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
Scientists of Bluesky, introduce yourselves by replying to this post and I’ll share it and help you get some followers! I’m David, I’m based in DC and study shark ecology and conservation policy. I’m the author of “Why Sharks Matter.” 🧪🦑🌎🐠🦈
Me securing a shark getting measured for a research workup Posing with some friends as part of my Why Sharks Matter book tour.
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Prof. Eliot Jacobson @climatecasino.net · 22/08/2025
I just realized it's been over a month since I last posted this graphic. This gives a variety of running averages for the global temperature anomaly compared to the 1850-1900 pre-industrial baseline over timespans from a single day to the last two years. tl;dr ~ we're still f&%ked.
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WIRED @wired.com · 19/08/2025
A United States Senate investigation has identified more than 500 credible reports of human rights abuses in US immigration detention since January, including alarming allegations of mistreatment of pregnant women and children.
wired.com
Senate Probe Uncovers Allegations of Widespread Abuse in ICE Custody
Led by US senator Jon Ossoff, the investigation cites hundreds of reports since January, including accounts of miscarriages, child neglect, and sexual abuse at ICE detention centers in dozens of state...
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ian bremmer @ianbremmer.com · 12/08/2025
new analysis from the new yorker tries to estimate how much trump has made during his time in politics: $3.4 billion
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
🚨Now that the men imprisoned by the Trump admin in El Salvador are free, their stories are coming out; and they are horrific. One man describes how Salvadoran officials at the prison beat them regularly, stole money from them, and denied them medical care — even painkillers.
In the four months they spent there, the detainees said, they were beaten repeatedly with wooden bats. González was robbed of thousands of dollars, he said, and denied access to lawyers or a chance to call his family. Joen Suárez, 23, was taken several times to a dark room known as La Isla — or “the island” — and beaten, kicked and insulted. Angel Blanco Marin, 22, said he was hit so hard he lost half of a molar. He asked for painkillers and medical attention but was given none for more than a month.
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Dr. Adeene Denton @spacewhalerider.com · 23/07/2025
Took a week off because I was in DC for the Pluto conference, but my weekly radio show, The Search for Planet 9, is back today at 12 pm PT/3 pm ET! We've got some indie classics today, so tune in here: 1190.radio
1190.radio
KVCU Radio 1190 – 1190 AM Boulder & 92.9 FM Denver
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Gregory Brew @gbrew24.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
The experience with Iran and Russia makes it abundantly clear: while oil sanctions are good for restructuring oil flows around geopolitical relationships, they fall short on changing state behavior. With implications for US-China. My latest for @foreignpolicy.com foreignpolicy.com/2025/07/23/o...
foreignpolicy.com
Why Oil Sanctions No Longer Work
Oil sanctions have failed to deliver results with Iran and Russia. It would be a mistake to try them with China.
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Kimberley Johnson @kimberleyjohnson.bsky.social · 03/07/2025
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 30/06/2025
You hear this a lot on the left but it isn't true. USAID did not "fail to tell its story to Americans," the right targeted the agency with lies and misinformation. Ultimately this narrative turns conservative attacks into even more calls for the left to reform. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/29/o...
I Worked at U.S.A.I.D. for Over 8 Years. This Is Our Biggest Failure.
I worked for U.S.A.I.D. in East Africa over the past eight and a half years, selling the story of American foreign aid to people in Rwanda, Ethiopia and Kenya. Our inability to tell this same story to Americans is our great failure. It is what put the agency into the Department of Government Efficiency’s wood chipper first. It’s what allows Secretary of State Marco Rubio to get away with insisting that lifesaving humanitarian aid would continue while the administration drastically slashed its funding. And it’s what I fear will let this presidency cast the deaths from the next preventable catastrophe as unstoppable or inevitable.
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Michael Zaharis @michaelzaharis1.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
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Helene von Bismarck @helenebismarck.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
I mean. Politics are increasingly a completely unhinged spectacle of irrational people fighting each other, while the rational people sit on the sidelines, desperately trying to write clever, cogent and dispassionste articles on why this actually all makes sense if you think about it long enough.
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Michael Zaharis @michaelzaharis1.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
I'd say this aged like milk, but it was obviously sour from the get-go.
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Tombendel @tombendel.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Like this?
A photo of the thermal exhaust port on the Death Star in Star Wars.
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Geoff Brumfiel @gbrumfiel.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
ANALYSIS: There is a LOT of stuff in the media right now about the Massive Ordinance Penetrator-- the American bunker-buster that might get used on Iran's deeply buried site at Fordow. Can it hit Fordow? I'm not sure. Here's why (WITH MATH). 🧵
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Josh Zingher @zingherpolisci.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
Everything that’s happened over the past six months has been a response to an imaginary crisis. There is no immigrant invasion. No trade crisis. No scientific or governance crisis. Just people completely high off their own supply trying to fundamentally reorder society. None of this had to happen.
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Runway Girl @runwaygirl.com · 08/06/2025
American Airlines’ 787-9P ups the ante for Premium Economy runwaygirlnetwork.com/2025/06/amer... A #nosetotail trip report by @airchivesloan.bsky.social #aviation #paxex #avgeek
The passenger holds u[p the tethered IFE remote to the IFE screen in PE. Image: Chris SloanBeverages sit on the drinks table atop the middle console of this pair of PE seats. Image: Chris SloanOverhead view of PE seat in full recline. Image: Chris SloanDevice holder on the tray table is extended. Image: Chris Sloan
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Khashoggi's Ghost @urocklive1.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
Surprise! Or not.🤷‍♀️ A former DOGE employee says that he found that the federal waste, fraud and abuse that his agency was supposed to uncover were "relatively nonexistent" during his short time embedded within the Department of Veterans Affairs. www.npr.org/2025/06/02/n...
npr.org
Former DOGE engineer says federal waste and fraud were 'relatively nonexistent'
NPR's Juana Summers talks with Sahil Lavingia, who worked for the Department of Government Efficiency as a software engineer assigned to the Department of Veterans Affairs, about his experience.
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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 06/06/2025
“Scientific knowledge is, fortunately, a public good, and as such, its benefits transcend international boundaries. But relinquishing its prominence in creating the future is nothing short of devastating for the United States.”
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
I'm just glad one of these men has the nuclear codes and the other has all our personal data.
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Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
Very ominous: Trump administration officials delayed and censored a govt forecast because it predicts an increase in the nation’s trade deficit in farm goods later this year www.politico.com/news/2025/06...
politico.com
Trump officials delayed farm trade report over deficit forecast
Administration officials blocked publication of written analysis that normally accompanies the report because they disliked what it said about the deficit.
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Dave Huntsman @davehuntsman.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
Short Clip: 'Flying blind': Meteorologist warns how Trump cuts will impact hurricane... youtube.com/shorts/VsGfu... via @YouTube
youtube.com
'Flying blind': Meteorologist warns how Trump cuts will impact hurricane season
YouTube video by MSNBC
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
🚨🚨🚨 In the last two hours, the Trump admin: - Banned all immigrant visas from 19 countries, including Cuba, Haiti, and Venezuela - Banned all student and researcher visas to Harvard - Colluded with Texas to kick 20,000 undocumented college students off of in-state tuition.
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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
I still think this is one of the most gutting notes I’ve ever read.
Notecard by a homeless person expressing what object was most devastating to lose: Dentures were thrown away and coping isn’t something I can do. It’s made me feel ugly, unworthy, can’t go get a job with no teeth. So how can get off the streets until another pair can be made?
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ian bremmer @ianbremmer.com · 02/06/2025
drones redefining modern warfare in real time
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James Tuttle Keane @jtuttlekeane.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
The NASA planetary science fleet chart if the president’s budget is enacted.
The NASA planetary science fleet chart. It shows two spirals with missions to Moon/Mars and the Solar System. I’ve crossed off all of the missions that will be cancelled in the president’s budget… and there are a lot of them.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 24/05/2025
tl;dr — this EO co-opts the language of open science to implement a system of political control wherein presidential appointees are given broad latitude to designate any number of reasonable scientific activities and inferences as scientific misconduct, and to penalize those involved accordingly.
whitehouse.gov
Restoring Gold Standard Science
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 7301 of title 5, United
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 20/05/2025
Sea level rise will cause ‘catastrophic inland migration’, scientists warn
theguardian.com
Sea level rise will cause ‘catastrophic inland migration’, scientists warn
Rising oceans will force millions away from coasts even if global temperature rise remains below 1.5C, analysis finds Sea level rise will become unmanageable at just 1.5C of global heating and lead to “catastrophic inland migration”, the scientists behind a new study have warned. This scenario may unfold even if the average level of heating over the last decade of 1.2C continues into the future. The loss of ice from the giant Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets has quadrupled since the 1990s due to the climate crisis and is now the principal driver of sea level rise. Continue reading...
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ToughSF @toughsf.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
Data and charts for ICBM re-entry profiles: www.rand.org/content/dam/... They range from shallow 10° at 7.3 km/s, to steep 60° at 9.6 km/s, which is especially relevant for potential interception.
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Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Yes! I highly recommend ProPublica, among others. Those are actual journalists doing what needs to be done to educate the public in this moment instead of watering down their reporting to preserve flimsy access.
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Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
A very, very quick primer on what India and Pakistan are fighting over (thread).
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Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
I like this. I like this a lot.
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Wesley Livesay @historyofthesecondworldwar.com · 07/05/2025
Okay strap in, we are about to go deep here. Lets talk about why LLMs are, in general, bad at working with specific questions about history but also give seemingly solid answers to those questions. There are real limitations to what LLMs can do, and understanding that is really important.
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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
🚨 Cool new project alert 🚨 WE- you, me, everyone- need to work together to get important science messages out to people. 4 artists & 3 scientists collab'd on these posters. We hope YOU will put them out in your community. Each poster comes w/info about each topic. Get 'em Squidfacts.bigcartel.com
4 12x18 inch posters on a brick and concrete wall. The top left is pink and says funding science saves lives, written in microbes, next to a microscope. The one on the right says Biology is bigger than binaries, with a fish, a lily, and a bee. The bottom left says Protecting wildlife starts wtih you, with a bunch of adiorable woodland creatues in yellow, white and black, including an owl, fungi, a... um. weasel? salamanders, butterflies, slugs, and a rotting log. The bottom right says Will our oceans thrive or nosedive the choice is yours, with the ocean represented in a circle, half of which is dead and half of which is alive, including kelp and a mackerel
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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Physicist and astronomer Willem de Sitter was born #OTD in 1872. He is best known for his work in Cosmology, applying Einstein’s general relativity to the dynamics and history of the universe, and also for strong "Jude Law as young Dumbledore" vibes. 🧪 🔭 ⚛️ Image: history.aip.org/exhibits/cos...
A sepia tinted photograph of Willem de Sitter standing next to the eyepiece of a large telescope. He is wearing a suit with jacket and vest, a white collared shirt with a black bow tie, and a dark as well as a dark fedora. A watch fob extends from one of the vest's button holes to a pocket. De Sitter's left hand is in his pants pocket and his right arm rests on a ledge on the wall of the telescope dome. He is looking directly at the camera; part of the telescope instrumentation is between him and the camera but he is peering over it. De Sitter has a neatly trimmed beard and appears to have a cigar or cigarette in the corner of his mouth. A very strong "Jude Law as young Dumbledore" vibe.
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Patrick Chovanec @prchovanec.bsky.social · 27/04/2025
There was a whole anime TV series in Japan about female JASDF fighter pilots actually flying real dragons.
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Anders Åslund @andersaslund.bsky.social · 25/04/2025
Trump refuses to understand that the US is not being "ripped off," but on the contrary has been subject to an exorbitant privilege: Foreigners wanted to invest their financial assets in the US. This was the US exceptionalism. US stocks were valued at 2/3 more than EU stocks. /1
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southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
A US citizen with a learning disability who has just suffered a medical emergency asks a CBP officer for directions outside the emergency room. He ends up detained in an icebox for ten days and has the assistant secretary of DHS lying about him to the public at large. popular.info/p/us-citizen...
Tricia McLaughlin &
@TriciaOhio
0...
The narrative being pushed about Jose Hermosillo is false. On April 8, Hermosillo approached Border Patrol in Tucson and stated he had entered the U.S. illegally through Nogales. He said he wanted to turn himself in and completed a sworn statement identifying as a Mexican citizen who had entered unlawfully.
He was processed and appeared in court on April 11. Afterward, he was held by the U.S. Marshals in Florence, AZ. A few days later, his family presented documents showing U.S. citizenship. The charges were dismissed, and he was released to his family.
This arrest was the direct result of Hermosillo's own actions and statements.In an interview with Popular Information, his first with any media outlet, Hermosillo said DHS'.
's account was false.
According to Hermosillo, he was visiting his girlfriend's family in Tucson from his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Several hours before his arrest, Hermosillo was transported to a hospital in Tucson by ambulance after suffering from a seizure. He has a New Mexico state ID, but did not take it with him during the medical emergency.
After being released from the hospital following treatment, Hermosillo did not know how to return to where he was staying.
He approached the Border Patrol officer because he was looking for someone to help him. "I saw a car, and I askled] him for help," Hermosillo said. He told the officer that he was staying in Tucson."You"
re not from here. Do you have your
papers?" the officer said, according to Hermosillo. When the officer asked where he was from, Hermosillo said he told the officer,
"New Mexico." The officer then accused Hermosillo of lying. "Don't make me lout] like [I'm] stupid," the officer said. "I know you're from Mexico." After that, Hermosillo said, he was arrested.
Hermosillo said that he never told the officer that he was born in Mexico, was a citizen of Mexico, or entered the country illegally. And he would not have said those things because they are not true. He signed the transcript released by DHS because the officer ordered him to "sign everything." But Hermosillo did not read it, because he cannot read.
According to Hermosillo's girlfriend, Grace Hernandez, Hermosillo has learning disabilities and can only write his name.
Hermosillo said he did not graduate from high school and dropped out after the 10th grade.The officer also signed the document, which said Hermosillo "read" the document or had
it read to him. But Hermosillo said no one read him the document.
Other documents created by the officer have inaccuracies. For example, the criminal complaint says that Hermosillo was detained
"at or near Nogales, Arizona." But Hermosillo was detained in Tuscon, which is more than 70 miles from Nogales. John Mennell, a spokesperson for the U.S. Border Patrol, said that it was an "unintentional" error.
Hermosillo said he was detained with about
15 other men in a cell at the Florence Correctional Center. He was served only cold food. He said he contracted the flu because
"they have it cold in there and everybody's getting sick." Hermosillo said he requested medicine but was not provided with any.
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Sandeep Bakshi @sandeepbak.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Viewpoint diversity in academia has oft figured under the guise of 'all sides' representation. By coopting language of social justice, white scholars who've neither read nor published on race become pontificators on the topic, dictating solutions & consolidating their power to thwart transformation.
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