iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

“My Notes on the Early Dutch Renaissance,” a story I wrote, is up at the very cool StoryBottleCo.org! Check it out: www.storybottleco.org/mynotesonthe...

storybottleco.org

"My Notes on the Early Dutch Renaissance" by Nick Mangigian | StoryBottle Co.

Short fiction by Nick Mangigian

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Basically: america is an idea. Solid claim! First constitutional democracy in the modern world. Therefore, loving america (patriotism) means loving the idea (social contract). Bang that drum all day and wrap it in the goddamn flag no matter how corny it is.

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

I’m making an argument here, for what it’s worth, and not insisting I’m right-- just articulating what resonates for me

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

The constitution is the literal social contract and a good place to start. The process of amending it, bill of rights, & other founding docs (esp Declaration) are all persuasively and powerfully claimable by the left— if we want it! Ceding them to the right, otoh, esp *politically* seems suboptimal

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Patriotism in the US, specifically, means valuing our social contract. It’s that simple. If people engaged sincerely with that we’d be in a much better place today. The left can win the patriotism argument by a mile; therefore it’s an argument worth making.

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 20/06/2026

Agree, as someone that worked in small businesses for many years and LOVED it. Most aren’t great! It’s punishingly difficult to own/operate a small biz and that draws difficult personalities. Props for buying local anyways. Staff are often real subject matter enthusiasts once the ice breaks

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

This obviously still blows my mind a day later. This kind of thing is the actual origin story for why we need “Black Lives Matter.” A moment of silence for the perpetrator of a clear homicide? The Minnesota GOP, in keeping with national trends, is trash.

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

The Minnesota State GOP held a moment of silence for Derek Chauvin at their convention. "A delegate then called for a moment of silence for Derek Chauvin... State Rep. Danny Nadeau, R-Rogers, led a 10-second moment of silence after taking an informal vote." minnesotareformer.com/2026/05/30/k...

minnesotareformer.com

Kendall Qualls wins GOP endorsement for governor • Minnesota Reformer

DULUTH – Army veteran and former health care executive Kendall Qualls won the endorsement for governor from Republican activists gathered for the GOP state convention Saturday, beating House Speaker L...

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Altra makes a few flavors of zero drop, like just a little cushioning (escalante) to others that have a *lot* of cushioning. So you could work in something with similar cushioning level as a one-run-a-week shoe to start, though 5mm doesn't seem like a huge deal on 20 mpw... just watch that cadence!

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Sandra Kelly @2020willbelit.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

ICYMI: The US is currently holding three times as many people in immigrant detention as were detained in the Nazi concentration camp system in spring 1939 — six years into the Third Reich, and just before the start of World War II.

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Jonathan Weisman @jonathanweisman.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

As Kevin Gonzalez lay in a hospital bed, his gaunt frame ravaged by cancer, his aspirations narrowed to a final wish: seeing his parents before he died. Fulfilling that dream meant a desperate fight against time as his father and mother sat in immigration detention. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/u...

nytimes.com

A Dying Son, His Detained Parents and a Race to Reunite Before the End

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Louis Römer @lromeranth.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

This statement is meant to be left-punching, but notice that the most popular left-wing candidates (Bernie, Mamdani, AOC) are superb at plain-spokenness, and it is the moderate wing that usually offers language that has been optimized and focus-grouped to death

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Wes Burdine @wesburdine.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Man, when you compare the bravery of every day Minnesotans to the overpaid cops it’s astounding

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

I think that's totally valid and maybe the best we can hope for is a two-track thing, where some people are arguing from high-minded ideals ("ask not what your country") and trying to plant those seeds, while others are trying to come up with an inspiring message that everybody can feel a stake in.

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

This is a genuinely difficult question, pardon my chiming in. I’m starting to think that if one has the right to vote, it’s also a responsibility. I wish citizenship wasn’t a responsibility, but any social contract requires some responsibility from each member. So, seeding that idea is helpful.

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Dana Houle @danahoule.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Hearing him lecture the Pope on theology reminds me that JD Vance went to Yale Law.

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

I think people are allowed to draw conclusions about the American people based on their decision to put this man in office bsky.app/profile/pear...

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

Your posts on this subject the last couple days have made me think a lot about what the average non-voter would be "gettable" by. And the answers are probably pretty heterodox but maybe boil down to "convincingly good and fresh vibes" more so than policy (which, as you suggest, is probably not it)

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Totally!! I just saw this and felt a lot of contemporary resonances too. There is a kind of gangsterism that seems embodied by Trump and his crew that is really well-portrayed in the film.

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 18/03/2026

I know I've said this a trillion times but I have to say it periodically to keep from going insane: The right ran a huge, well-funded, & ultimately successful campaign to completely take over political media & the infosphere more generally. This is by far the most important political development...

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

I think that 22% bracket between 48k--100k can be burdensome. And 10% on your first 12k is tough too. My amateurish 2c is, minimum wage should be like $20/hr, we shouldn't hit 20% til we get to 75k, and tax brackets should keep going up til you get to like ~100M where you pay ~85% or something

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Tom Scocca @tomscocca.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Pretty sure there's a connection between that poll where the majority of Americans say most people around them are bad people and the fact that nine out of 10 phone calls in this country are from predatory scammers

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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

I think it's best for everyone to understand that the unified class project of billionaires right now is to do to white collar workers what globalization and neoliberalism did to blue collar workers.

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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

If America still had the rule of law, this would be the easiest prosecution ever, but we all know absolutely nothing will happen.

Six accounts on Polymarket made around $1 million in profit by betting on the US to strike Iran by Feb. 28, according to analytics firm Bubblemaps SA. The accounts were all freshly created in February and had only ever placed bets on when US strikes might occur. Some of their shares were purchased, in some cases at roughly a dime apiece, hours before the first explosions were reported in Tehran.

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Andrew Lawrence @ndrew.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

things every single republican president of your lifetime has done - started a war in the middle east - completely destroyed the economy

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The Onion @theonion.com · 26/02/2026

Kash Patel Faces Backlash After Partying With Nancy Guthrie’s Captors theonion.com/kash-patel-faces-backl…

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

This is an interesting observation and it made me think. Ultimately, I think what's appealing about ZM are two things: he seems to have integrity, and he doesn't seem bound by orthodoxy. Those feed each other. One suspects he wouldn't roll over on ICE, for instance, the way Adams or Cuomo would.

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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

"Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a nearly blind refugee from Burma who Border Patrol agents dropped off at a doughnut shop Thursday and left to find his way home, 5 miles away, has been found dead." To read the words is to damn all involved, from Trump on down.

investigativepost.org

Blind refugee abandoned by Border Patrol dies in Buffalo.

A nearly blind refugee abandoned by Border Patrol miles from his home dies in Buffalo after having been missing for nearly a week.

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

In effect, we are relying on the good principles, sanity, and clarity of mind of 7 people to not completely destroy life as we know it.

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

Important thread. I had a conversation about this with a family member over the holidays: if you were trying to argue for a non-isolationist American foreign policy, there was once a good argument: keeping nukes out of the hands of dictators who might launch one at a whim. In the Trump era? Uh, no.

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Joe Cirincione @joecirin.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

THREAD: My article in @lemonde.fr today is behind a pay wall. But I would like to share a few of the key points. I've been lecturing & writing on pieces of this for a few months. This is my most complete exposition, but I hope to turn it into a longer piece soon. 1/ www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/a...

lemonde.fr

'Today, 96% of the world's nuclear weapons are held by states with authoritarian leaders'

OP-ED. By allowing the New START treaty to expire, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin deliver the final blow to global regulation of the ultimate weapon. International security expert Joseph Cirincione w...

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Thank you, Senator Smith, for your advocacy, firmness, and commitment to not looking away. I know it's a loaded term, but these ICE detention centers meet every definition of a concentration camp that I've run across. What would happen, politically, if the whole D party said that with their chest?

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Andrea Pitzer @andreapitzer.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

In the concentration camp universe, this is what's known as a filtration camp. A government preemptively takes a whole class of people to interrogate and detain extrajudicially in order to inflict duress on them while arbitrarily assessing their (supposed) culpability.

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Gregory Pratt @royalpratt.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

Ofelia Torres, the teenage Chicago Public Schools student whose fight against cancer while her father was detained by ICE came to represent the federal government's overreach during Operation Midway Blitz, has died. Brave young woman. I will never forget her. RIP.

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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

They're building concentration camps with my tax money Chuck. They're torturing children. They're murdering innocent people on the street. What are you doing.

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David Simon @audacityofdespair.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

The hometown newspaper that I read as a teenager through Watergate and Vietnam and made me crave the life of a reporter is now being butchered by a billionaire who had $75 million to bribe and flatter a president and his wife but nothing to save journalism, an bulwark of the republic itself. Got it.

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Arizona Right Watch @azrww.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Highlighting the speaker who stood in front of the Surprise mayor and told him to consider what the Mayor of Ohrdruf must’ve thought before he died by suicide: “He might have thought ‘how is this my fault I had no jurisdiction over this’ maybe he said ‘this site was not subject to local zoning.’”

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Jesse @requiemarm.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

they should make a movie series about how it’s irresponsible to use technology to mess with the natural order of things for profit

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Governor Tim Walz @governorwalz.mn.gov · 31/01/2026

They’re taking kids from Minnesota and sending them to detention camps. They’re shooting American citizens in the street and locking investigators out of the crime scenes. The world is watching what happens next.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 27/01/2026

Here's what ICE is up to in Northeast Minneapolis today. Absolutely heartbreaking. Warning: video is hard to watch

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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

just screams public service

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Rodger Sherman @rodger.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

fun chart for the "dunk on red states" crowd, but also shows a path to killing fascism dead: education. take those ICE billions and spend it on schools in all 50 states. free college for all. we have the best higher ed system in the world, let more people be a part of it

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donald @boringstein.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

have not seen enough people fully processing the fact that in effect a quarter of the population of Minneapolis are out there looking out for their neighbors right now

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

New consoler in chief just dropped

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Nick @nbcfetceteraetal.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

I corrected, I meant minority leader. Anyways— we largely want the same thing, meaning for the political process to work and function. I think you can probably tell where I’m coming from. Have a solid rest of the day.

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