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Michael Rooney

@mr00ney.bsky.social
1K followers 953 following 1.3K posts

Philosopher by training. Co-author, with Richard L. Epstein, of Critical Thinking (5e). Eight-time winner on Jeopardy. Southern Californian. Sansei.

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Reposted by Michael Rooney
Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 28/09/2026
These are what the clouds on Jupiter look up close. The small patches of white are cloud tops, soaring above the main, colourful cloud layer. Image from NASA's Juno spacecraft during its 38th close approach to Jupiter on 29 November 2021, processed by Kevin Gill (@kevinmgill.bsky.social)
A complex, swirling pattern of lighter and darker clouds. One large system, angled to the upper left in this scene, is a tawny brown colour and is elongate. Another, more circular storm system is at lower centre, and is a grey–greenish colour. The background swirls are various shades of grey to blue; small, white features dot the scene.
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 26/09/2026
if Eliezer Yudkowsky was born into a somewhat poorer family and missed a couple lucky breaks, he’d have ended up as an archetypal specimen of your friend’s older cousin who keeps boa constrictors and makes you listen to him talk about quantum physics in his parent’s basement in exchange for weed
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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
As a child I lived for a few years I lived close to the village of Great Missenden. There was a very tall, shabby, creepy man that apparently we used to see around the shops and my mother says she would warn my brothers and I not to go near him. He was Roald Dahl.
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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 24/09/2026
Yes. I think the consensus among US elite pundits and senior politicians that the way to protect liberal democracy is *not* to punish elite figures who violate its rules is wrong. A norm starting at least with the Watergate pardon. The opposite is true. You need to enforce the law and Constitution.
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Paul Cezanne @cezanne.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Maison Maria with a View of Chateau Noir, 1895 botfrens.com/collections/43/content…
Maison Maria with a View of Chateau Noir
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Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Incised into a reindeer foot-bone presumably some 15,000 years ago, this engraving represents two hinds. The realistic rendering of the drawing is truly amazing! Found in the Grotte de Chaffaud/France. 📷 RMN-GP. Jean-Gilles 🏺#archaeology
The engraving shows two hind on a flattened bone fragment. Their bodies are rendered in profile with carefully incised fur and branching ears. The hind one the left is more complete, while the second appears partly interrupted by cracks and missing sections of the bone.
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Michael Rooney @mr00ney.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
“…the main beneficiaries of societal breakdown are the most ruthless and murderous among us.”
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Vaccine conspiracism is overwhelmingly clustered among the religious, white and affluent. It’s a function of conservative ideology and bad faith media. Being nicer to MAHA types will not ‘bring them into the fold,’ it will only increase their sense of entitlement.
Objective: Strengthening of antivaccination movements in recent decades has coincided with unprecedented increases in the incidence of some communicable diseases. Many intervention programs work from a deficit model of science communication, presuming that vaccination skeptics lack the ability to access or understand evidence. However, interventions focusing on evidence and the debunking of vaccine-related myths have proven to be either nonproductive or counterproductive. Working from a motivated reasoning perspective, we examine the psychological factors that might motivate people to reject scientific consensus around vaccination. To assist with international generalizability, we examine this question in 24 countries. Methods: We sampled 5,323 participants in 24 countries, and measured their antivaccination attitudes. We also measured their belief in conspiracy theories, reactance (the tendency for people to have a low tolerance for impingements on their freedoms), disgust sensitivity toward blood and needles, and individualistic/hierarchical worldviews (i.e., people's beliefs about how much control soci hould have over individuals, and whether hierarchies are desirable). Results: In
order of magnitude,
antivaccination attitudes were highest among those who (a) were high in conspir-
atorial thinking, (b) were high in reactance, (c) reported high levels of disgust toward blood and needles, and (d) had strong individualistic/hierarchical worldviews
. In contrast, demographic variables (including
education) accounted for nonsignificant or trivial lev
f variance. Conclusions: These data help
identify the "attitude roots" that may motivate and sustain vaccine skepticism. In so doing, they help shed light on why repetition of evidence can be nonproductive, and suggest communication solutions to that problem.
Keywords: vaccination, conspiracy beliefs, health communication,
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Michael Rooney @mr00ney.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Sharp brief earthquake, I presume
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Michael Rooney @mr00ney.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
“Why would the powers that be insist that the only cure for this supposed dreadful disease is to eat these unknown, untested, and totally experimental fruits? We know that limes, lemons, and even oranges are filled with acid”
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Deborah Rose @deborahrosereeves.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Spent a heavenly afternoon at La Capitolare di Verona - 1,509 years old & the oldest library in the world still in operation today 🕯️
Hundreds of very old and very large books richly illuminated on ornate wooden shelves (ground floor and  wraparound mezzanine level) Hundreds of very old and very large books richly illuminated on ornate wooden shelves (ground floor and  wraparound mezzanine level). This picture is a wide view and also depicts the marble flooring and a large  chandelier hanging in the centre of the room. 

On 1 August 517, in the Veronese scriptorium, the scribe Ursicino completed, signed and dated a manuscript which still stands today as the earliest certain record of its history.
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Jo Wolff @jowolff.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
“Goebbels was a peerless sloganeer, and a brilliant speaker, with a mellifluous voice. His propaganda approach was simple: find out what people hate and make them hate it more.” Frank McDonough The Weimar Years.
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Michael Rooney @mr00ney.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
“Raccoon protocol” should be what they call the federal bailout program when the AI bubble bursts
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Stan Oklobdzija @stano.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Amazing to live in a country where the secret police are handling inter-chud beefs. It's like the Night of Long Knives playing out in the parking lot of a Dollar General.
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Claude Monet @monet.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Monet chased fleeting light; Cézanne chased structure. Stand before a Mont Sainte-Victoire and the gap is obvious. Yet Monet owned fourteen Cézannes — and told Georges Clemenceau: "Cézanne is the greatest of us all."
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Prison Policy Initiative @prisonpolicy.org · 26/08/2026
We bust more myths about the criminal legal system in our report, Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 👇
prisonpolicy.org
Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2026
The big picture on how many people are locked up in the United States and why
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dr. rich traditions, JD @helldude.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
this fucking guy is allegedly worth 8 or 9 billion dollars. take the smaller figure. assume hes bad at being rich and can only make a 2% return on that capital a year. that's 160,000,000. enough. enough!!
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Paul Cezanne @cezanne.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Four Apples, 1881 botfrens.com/collections/43/content…
Four Apples
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Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
mRNA vaccines vs cancer success —melanoma (Phase 3, RCT, definitive, announced today) —triple negative breast cancer —pancreatic cancer —non-small cell lung cancer —glioblastoma
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Casual reminder that the myth of “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” is a cruel hoax designed to convince poor people from all walks of life that the injustices they face are a result of their own actions, rather than an oppressive system rigged against them.
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RTVE Noticias @rtvenoticias.rtve.es · 18/08/2026
⚫Muere Juan Tamariz, el mago que traspasó generaciones, a los 83 años de edad, según ha confirmado su familia. dozz.es/o_udu4
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Muere Juan Tamariz, el mago que traspasó generaciones
Muere Juan Tamariz, el mago que traspasó generaciones
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Petra Michaela @petramichaela.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
In the mountains around Los Angeles, 88% of bobcats tested positive for rat poison. In one study, 31 of 39 d*ad bobcats had anticoagulants in their systems. They eat the poisoned rodents we've scattered, their immune systems collapse, mange takes hold, and they die slow deaths.
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Michael Rooney @mr00ney.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
“I had to watch my son, who is in high school and has been a legal resident of California for 12 years, be handcuffed. We were shipped to Texas overnight from Los Angeles in horrible conditions that I won’t elaborate on in this letter. We have remained in Texas ever since.” DHS must be abolished.
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optimisticsoap.bsky.social @optimisticsoap.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Libraries make us a harder target for authoritarianism. Equal access to info, ideas, and space that doesn’t require a purchase to belong. Also: using the library means money stays in your community instead of streaming out to Amazon. 📚 What’s checked out on your card right now?
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Michael Rooney @mr00ney.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Worth reading the whole thread, the linked article, and book. “It was done because the military felt they could” is the essential point.
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Vincent van Gogh @vangogh.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Still LIfe - Vase with Red Gladiolas - 1886 botfrens.com/collections/46/content…
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Sarah E. Bond @sarahebond.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Making kyphi at the ancient incense & smell conference in Rome a few years ago. Kyphi was often used for sleep and beneficial dreams. www.forbes.com/sites/drsara...
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Bloomberg News @bloomberg.com · 30/06/2026
Soaring sales of Biscoff cookies are helping a Belgian food company extend a remarkable decade of stock market outperformance. Lotus shares are up 47% year-to-date, taking gains in the last decade to nearly 590% even as other snack makers struggle. Read more: bloom.bg/4v5fa8Q 📷: Kurt Desplenter
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Chapps @chapps.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
I'm a huge fan of archaeological photos where we get our first peek at objects in the field. Here, a 1st c. CE marble monopodium (table base) in the form of a naked boy holding a goose appears out of the lapilli in #Pompeii in 1952. 🏺 #ancientbluesky 1/ 📸 left, me; right, see ALT
Marble sculpture of a naked boy with longish hair, wearing a cape and holding a small goose. He stands against a pilaster, which would have formed the support for a marble garden table. 

Photo: my own, taken at the exhibition “L’altra Pompei, vite comuni all’ombra del Vesuvio” ('The other Pompeii, ordinary lives in the shadow of Vesuvius'), held at the Pompeii palaestra.Black and white photo from the excavation of 1952, showing the head and top of the table support pilaster of this sculpture appearing out of a mound of lapilli, volcanic material (like loads of small pebbles or rocks). A brick column and brick wall are in the background. 

Photo courtesy of Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei
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Michael Rooney @mr00ney.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
“We abandon the body and what it learns by being in the world—the physical world—at our peril. By touching, looking, listening, smelling, and even tasting … we don’t just gather ‘data’, that soulless word that flattens everything that can’t be described in numbers.”
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Dr Craig R McClain @drcraigmc.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
The sea mouse is not a mouse. It's a chunky marine worm covered in felt-like hair that diffracts light into shifting reds, blues, and golds, some of the best natural photonics we know of. A brown lump on the seafloor that turns into a rainbow when the light hits right. #WormWednesday #marinelife
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 02/08/2026
I'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.
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Michael Rooney @mr00ney.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
“…this dependence on a formula for safety, for that is what it was, signaled a desperate moral abdication. People went to the shrink in order to find justification for the empty lives they led and the meaningless work they did.” Late Baldwin is diffuse but still bracing. Happy 102nd, Jimmy.
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Flint Dibble @flintdibble.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
In this example, Achilles and Ajax are both named & calling out their scores, with words coming out of their mouths. In every example like this, Achilles is winning In this sense, ancient Greek art is like a modern comic book. With labels and the characters even speaking words /11
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Dr. Peter Paul Rubens @peterpaulrubens.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
The fetishistic allure of the exotic, perfectly represented in Willem Kalf's amazing global still-life paintings, here from 1662. Today is his day.
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Sarah Taber @sarahtaber.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Most rural areas have a ruling class. And they want cheap unfree workers & to pass their fiefdoms on tax-free forever. It ain't rocket science. The fact that we're scared to talk about THAT, ime, is what's costing us a lot of rural voters!
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Erika Lee Sears @erikaleesears.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Blue #art #oilpainting
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Frank Pasquale @frankpasquale.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
“Of a sample of more than a million accounts on X, 64% could be bots, a finding that requires no stretch of the imagination, given the sheer inanity of interactions on the site.” www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
newyorker.com
How Bots Took Over Our Lives
During the 2016 election, much of the country was introduced to the concept of internet bots for the first time. Now, just a decade later, it feels like they’re everywhere.
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
TikTok has incredible moderation team. Our InfoWars video about Multiple Horse Theory — the idea that there are many horses in the world and not just one — has been fully deemed misinformation and lost the formal appeals process. Confirmed by Larry Ellison: There is only one horse on Earth.
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[Christopher M. Federico] @chrispps.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
this sounds elitist but our recovery from the present moment will depend in part on being able to once again effectively malign, ostracize, and refuse a platform to cranks
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Rita Moore @ritamoore.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Important corollary: people are LESS likely to support authoritarian leaders if people around them don't. This is where "social proof" comes in. Be vocal and visible to social circles and neighbors about your resistance against authoritarians AND your support of pro-democracy candidates and causes
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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
The thing is, I think you could actually teach something significant that way: have the player spend 15 minutes having their unit torn up by unseen airpower, then stop and ask, "was their morale broken, or do they *really* want to go fuck up that air base in the next mission?"
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Kevin Wilbraham @kpw1453.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Part of the interior of Taversoe Tuick Chambered Cairn on Rousay - one of the Orkney islands. The cairn dates to the Neolithic, and is a wonderful example of a two-storey cairn with chambers on top of each other. 📸 My own. #TombTuesday #Rousay #Prehistory #Archaeology #Orkney
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Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
WOW, I crossed 20k followers! Huge thanks to each one of you for your interest in archaeology. To celebrate this milestone, here's a highlight of our collections,an #IceAge masterpiece: The so-called Venus of Hohle Fels (a cave on the Swabian Jura) was carved in mammoth ivory some 40,000 years..🧵1/2
An ivory figurine with a weathered surface, shown in a museum setting, with exaggerated breasts, rounded hips, short limbs, and a small ring-like loop at the top where the head would be.
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CalMatters @calmatters.org · 18/07/2026
Opinion | A reporter’s work on unsafe jails shows why California shouldn’t weaken its public records law Giving agencies more time to fill records requests would likely delay families getting details on how their loved ones died in custody.
cal.news
Opinion | A reporter’s work on unsafe jails shows why California shouldn’t weaken its public records law
Giving agencies more time to fill records requests would likely delay families getting details on how their loved ones died in custody.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 14/07/2026
An amazing quote from Lindsey Graham in this Atlantic story. It really captures an essential truth about politics that too few people ever really come to terms with. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
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Ctenophores Rock! @ctenophoresrock.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Happy #CtenophoreCtuesday! For your moment of zen, enjoy this majestic comb jelly (Aulacoctena sp.), discovered 1.4 miles below the ocean's surface during the #NazcaHighSeas Expedition off the coast of Chile (2024) 🔊🪼 #ctenophore #scicomm #MarineLife #MarineBiodiversity 📽️: @schmidtocean.bsky.social
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Claude Monet @monet.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Houses of Parlilament, Fog Effect - 1903 botfrens.com/collections/41/content…
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Michael Rooney @mr00ney.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Thomas Pynchon Nicholson Baker John McPhee Michael Moorcock Daniel Mendelsohn
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