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Ook

@ooksbooks.bsky.social
225 followers 244 following 573 posts

Still figuring out how active I want to be here. I make no apologies for liking both current events discourse and weird fandom stuff, as well as gardening and cute animals.

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Reposted by Ook
The Irish Times @irishtimes.com · 11h
Eva Marie Saint, star of movies North by Northwest and On the Waterfront, dies at 102
irishtimes.com
Eva Marie Saint, star of movies North by Northwest and On the Waterfront, dies at 102
One of the last survivors of Hollywood’s golden age of the 1940s and ’50s dies of natural causes at her home
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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Abolish ICE. Fire them all. Prosecute their crimes. Start with prosecuting the crimes first and work your way backward if that makes you more comfortable. But we cannot live in a country with this level of elite impunity.
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Just a reminder: Tillis persuaded the woman Hegseth allegedly raped to come forward with her story, and told her that if she did, it would sink the nomination. She did. At great risk to herself. Tillis then cast the deciding vote for Hegseth. Because he’s a goddamned coward.
ms.now
Outgoing Sen. Tillis regrets pivotal vote for Hegseth: ‘He’s an actor. He’s not a manager’
Outgoing Sen. Thom Tillis spoke to MS NOW about regretting his vote to confirm Pete Hegseth and his strained relationship with Trump.
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Elizabeth Anne, PhD @lacksauthority.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
never the wrong time for this classic
Screenshot of a tweet by @RobbtKraft reading “scientist: "does everyone here know what Watson and Crick discovered?" 
me from back of room: "Rosalind Franklin's notes"”
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William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I do think this should put some of the hand-wringing over the uniquely sinful American electorate, uniquely feckless institutions, etc in perspective. The truth is that there is a large trans-national constituency of people who actively want this. They aren’t deceived. They want this.
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Cat Manning @catacalypto.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
this is my favorite genre of social media post and I am soliciting links or screenshots to your favorites
Jesse Raub @jesseraub.online
King Darius looking down at Daniel in the pit:
Norm Charlatan @normcharlatan....
Man, what are the Lions doing?
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
The problem has never really been that conservative voters are reluctant to criticize Trump. The problem is a relentless right-wing media apparatus that tells them Democrats are worse.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 03/10/2026
You can't get anyone in political media to say it plainly, but GOP strategy for several decades now has been built around the fact that its core goals/policies are *wildly unpopular*. Everything depends on a) polluting the information environment, b) cementing unfair structural advantages, & c) $$$.
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Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
I can think of no better illustration of this point that "holistic influencer" gulping from a ceramic vat with a radioactive glaze because the Rothschilds supposedly tried to take them away from us.
futurism.com
Alternative Health Influencer Boasts That He's Been Drinking From a Radioactive Jug for 250 Days Straight
Holistic influencer Matt Roeske recently bragged that he's been drinking from an irradiated jug for the better part of a year.
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Rosemary Mosco @rosemarymosco.com · 05/10/2026
Spooky bird stories. My Halloween comic from 2024.
A comic titled Spooky Bird Stories. In panel 1, a turkey vulture is telling stories to other vultures, and it says, "She walked toward the source of the terrible smell. She got closer and closer, and then, to her horror, she saw... No dead body." A black vulture says "No!" and a turkey vulture says "Did someone already eat it??" In panel 2, a northern cardinal is telling a story to some songbirds. It says "They peered through the windows of the house at the gory scene. Zombies had smashed through the door in the night. The homeowner was dead. But worst of all... He hadn't refilled the feeders." An eastern bluebird says "Aaah!" and an American goldfinch says "It can't be!". In panel 3, A screech owl is telling a story to other owls. It says "And then the ghost fluffed itself up really big to appear scarier." A saw-whet owl gasps, and a long-eared owl says "Horrifying!". In panel 4, a downy woodpecker is telling a story to other woodpeckers, and says "The eerie sound rang through the dark woods. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. It was the distinctive two-part knock of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The species had returned from the dead... FOR REVENGE." A red-cockaded woodpecker says "Yesss".
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Leah Greenberg ❌👑 @leahgreenberg.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I am darkly enjoying how the popularization of founder-driven go-direct communications has led to a situation where the public is getting real-time direct exposure to the reality that the major AI actors are led by sociopathic lunatics
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Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
YES! The Hastert Rule is THE SOLE REASON the House did not pass immigration reform in 2013-2014 when Boehner had every opportunity to pass immigration reform. Even factoring out the pedophilia (which you shouldn't), he did just as much damage as Gingrich did.
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 05/10/2026
If Democrats think winning back congress this year and the presidency in 2028 is enough, they are sorely mistaken. We'll be right back where we're at in 2032 with an even more fascist and white supremacist Republican party. It's not enough to win power.
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Lisa Carey @msleedy.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Genuinely concerned about what's happening to the space-time continuum in this toilet.
A toilet door with a sign saying "Temporally Out Of Order"
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Robert Rose @robear.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
A good fresh Star Trek take on those fake isekai title jokes
A tumblr screenshot showing a post and two reblog responses, reading:
1. "star trek would be the ideal fictional universe to get trapped in because you'd explain your situation and they'd be like yeah makes sense. no further questions. fortunately we can use the mysterious warp signature emitting from this system's icy moon to counterface with the solar radiation and slingshot you back home"
2. "I'm from a universe where your world is all a work of fiction." Benjamin Sisko, nodding. "That happened to me once."
3. "I Got Isekaid Into The Star Trek Universe And They Quickly Understood What Was Happening"
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𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℍ𝕚𝕤𝕥🎃𝕣𝕪 𝕠𝕗 ℂ𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕒 ℙ💀𝕕𝕔𝕒𝕤𝕥 @thoc.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
It still amazes me how these chudfucks idolize the crusades as if they weren’t one and all massive, embarrassing failures, own goals against fellow Christian kingdoms, and flimflam artists selling children into slavery… Actually, on second thought, maybe it makes perfect sense
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Sa-ilent Hill Bajaj @sahilbajaj.dev · 30/09/2026
The Bronx zoo has a Himalayan Snow Leopard cub and her name is Sarka 🥹
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Gwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
Great chance to post my all-time favorite headline
The Radium Water Worked Fine Until His Jaw Came Off
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Jessica Pishko @jesspish.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
WSJ published a piece about 287(g) agreements and how much they appearing to be paying (for few "arrests"). (gift link) www.wsj.com/us-news/immi...
wsj.com
Exclusive | How Local Police Get Paid Big Money for Just a Few Immigration Arrests
The Department of Homeland Security gives local agencies as much as $2 million for each arrest in a nationwide task force.
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Mark Harris @markharris.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I feel like the debate about what parts of AI are good and what parts are bad should wait until we solve the worldwide crisis caused by the fact that almost of all of its evangelists in both tech and govt are morally, intellectually, and ethically unequipped to oversee it, when not downright evil.
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Ryan CrawCour @ryan.crawcour.social · 01/10/2026
BREAKING NEWS: Tensions between Thor and the Care Bears have escalated rapidly overnight.
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sickorax @ripeteeth.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
genuinely crying in the club this is one of the tenderest and most thoughtful videos
youtube.com
Lil Nas X - World's Greatest! (Official Video)
YouTube video by LilNasXVEVO
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 01/10/2026
We must defend voting rights - Big P Politics - to the bitter end, but we need to defend organizing - small p politics - just as ferociously.
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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I mean yeah, a decade of no one holding Trump accountable for his much more obvious crimes, combined with both Nazi and Confederate rehabilitation projects on the right, was always going to lead to “actually we’ve never done ANYTHING wrong and you guys owe us apologies for every check on our power”
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Wonkette @wonkettemedia.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Pete Hegseth’s Big Speech Was Weirdest Village People Cover We’ve Ever Heard by @evanhurst.substack.com cross-posted from his other newsletter. Read, subscribe to both, links within! www.wonkette.com/p/pete-hegse...
wonkette.com
Pete Hegseth’s Big Speech Was Weirdest Village People Cover We’ve Ever Heard
No beardos! No weirdos! Testosterone cowboys! WHEEE!
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Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Fabulous fragment of an ancient Egyptian wall relief with three bears and an oil jar. The paint has survived some 4,500 years! Limestone relief from the Pyramid Temple of Sahure, Old Kingdom, 5th Dynasty, c. 2496-2483 BC. Neues Museum, Berlin 📷 by me #ReliefWednesday #Archaeology
My photo shows a circa 4,500-year-old limestone relief with some well-preserved paint in places, from the funerary temple of Sahure at Abusir, measuring 39 × 35 × 8.5 cm. It shows three bears (partial view only) and a tall one-handled pottery vessel, across two registers. The upper register at left, shows the two leds and hindquarters of a bear, and at right, a bear’s lowered head, chest, and foreleg, painted mid-brown. The lower register at left shows a tall, dark-reddish-brown pottery vessel with a long neck and single handle, and at right, the lowered head, neck, shoulder, and top of foreleg of a dark-brown bear. The bears wear collars tethered by ropes to looped fixtures in the ground. The fragment comes from a wall scene depicting tributes from the Levant. Bears were not native to Egypt. The bears represented are Syrian brown bears  (Ursus arctos syriacus), which were quite common in Levantine mountain regions in antiquity. They were kept as exotic animals in enclosures by Egyptian kings, and also hunted.
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Better Things Are Possible @internethippo.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Reading about Socrates, apparently he was horrific to look at and was still having kids in his 60s. Unbelievable game. Imagine you're at the bar and a man who looks like a beluga whale hits you with "The only thing I know is I know nothing" and you're just powerless to resist
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Tal Lavin @swordsjew.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Once again: anyone who thinks rape victims come forward for any reason except telling the truth at great fucking cost to themselves is a brainwashed bastard
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Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A 2,300-year-old silver container in the shape of a scallop-shell decorated with an octopus 🐙 It may once have held cosmetics. From Paternò, Sicily. Altes Museum, Berlin 📷 by me #Archaeology
My photo shows a silver shell-shaped container with an eight-armed octopus in relief at the centre of the lid. The arms of the octopus curl outwards across the ridges of the shell’s surface. This ornate shell container has a hinged lid and may once have been a cosmetic container . It is displayed on a clear stand in a museum case. Dimensions: 13.3 × 13.2 × 3 cm. It is part of the Silver Treasure from Paternò, Sicily, a hoard discovered in 1909, consisting of tableware and toiletries. Dated 4th-3rd century BC.
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Sarah Arellano @sugarvenom.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
yall can just listen to Lolita podcast by @jamieloftus.bsky.social for free
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Robert Francis @birdhistory.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I’m reading the depression-era diary from a highschooler in North Dakota and it’s making me emotional
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KPM @kpmcgrath.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Every mayor in America should be asked what they are going to do to ensure civilian control of our police forces, and what they will do to officers or departments that break the law.
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Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A phenomenal moment in the Senate. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., claims he has evidence Jack Smith went to a HAWKS game in Atlanta. Smith denies it. Schmitt declares he has busted Jack Smith for perjury. Smith, vexed, says he went to HAWKEYES game in Maryland. WATCH IN FULL, UNINTERRUPTED
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Captain Awkward @captainawkward.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Excellent thread! There *are* rewards for being A Good Guy Who Speaks Up even if they are not immediately obvious or publicly bestowed. First, integrity is its own reward. Maybe you didn’t save the world or change hearts & minds. But if you held the line on not making it worse, that’s something.
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Nora Bombay @norabombay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
In the years before AI, we had to make our own photoshops, with subjects that aged badly. These are mine: (2007-2015) Britney Spears of the Goa'uld.
Britney Spears, Stargate alien
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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Y E S
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Anna Holmes @annabookwriter.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
That said, the fact that there is so much interest makes me feel like I should mention them at least a little. This thread in no way can stand in place of working with a sensitivity consultant with lived experience! Here is a brief, nonexhaustive list of harmful disability tropes in fiction.
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ouinne @ouinne.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
ANNUAL HALLOWEEN REMINDER THAT ANYTHING WITH ACTIVATED CHARCOAL *WILL* FUCK WITH YOUR MEDICATIONS
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Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 27/09/2026
The bizarre culture that’s sprung up around Silicon Valley AI companies - which overlaps hugely with rationalist and effective altruist circles - appears to be seriously pressuring some women into attending sex parties for the sake of networking. This is, needless to say, horrifying.
taco belle
@ animalologist
Multiple things can be true at once
22h
The purpose of SlutCon is to help ease men who are scared of approaching women, and for women who simply enjoy flirting to be in an environment where that happens a lot, since there's generally a dearth of that
At the same time, many - probably most! - women do Not want to be flirted with or propositioned by men they don't know. When a small scene only has a handful of large, well-known events, each one has disproportionate impact on everybody's ideas of acceptable behavior among other members of their milieu.
Attending the same events = specific shared context. Means
you're somewhat on the same page.
I suspect that the men who publicly raised concerns about SlutCon's impact on the scene are being megaphones for private objections and distresses they've heard from women in the scene who would NOT be comfortable at an event like that, but who don't voice it publicly because they suspect they'd suffer socially for doing so. That going to SlutCon to be flirted with gives women social cachet, and squirming at the idea means you're [not cool, can't get with the program, are probably a wokescold or a prude etc etc other pejoratives] and therefore, that you'll be excluded or held at a distance
Now, if this scene were purely a social scene, that'd be perfectly fine. Don't go to parties that don't suit you!! The issue arises because it's NOT purely a social scene. This scene is inarguably tied up with Al safety, research, and the SF tech scene in general.
When consistently being invited to the right parties is professionally advantageous, and when SlutCon itself **is** going to be an excellent networking opportunity for people in those fields, it's not neutral that {sexual proclivities} are the filtering mechanism that determines who's in the room. It means that promiscuity & forwardness is explicitly professionally advantageous.
And, if the norms of SlutCon influence the norms of that milieu outside of the e…My suspicion is that men come out of the event more bold, more forward, and with the expectation that events attended by former flirt-girls are fair game for SlutCon-style forwardness. This creates a hostile environment for women who just want to socialize and work with these men, without being propositioned. And without pretending that they're cool with being sexualized for the sake of their inclusion in the scene.
I don't think we have solutions yet, but it's important that we can talk about it, at least.
Jakeup • @ myhandle
Sep 25
the purpose of SlutCon is to help men who are scared of women to start liking women, by putting them in proximity to women who like men and aren't scared of men
I'm not attending or involved in any way, but this is very aligned to my own mission and I'm rooting for their success
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Micah @rincewind.run · 27/09/2026
it’s nice to know that, as a nerdy and insufferable kid with good standardized test scores, I could really have turned out a whole lot worse
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Andi Zeisler @andizeisler.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
A woman was drugged, raped, and sexually trafficked to members of a fraternity. Two of the men involved were expelled. Five were given the opportunity to mitigate suspension by *writing an essay.* The dozens of other men who knew this was happening and said nothing? You already know the answer.
cornellsun.com
EDITORIAL | Cornell Won’t, We Will
The Editorial Board demands that Cornell stops protecting the alleged Chi Phi rapists through the University's opaque sexual assault policies.
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Chuck Tingle @chucktingle.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
to be that gullible about something so obvious is DEEPLY embarrassing, especially for folks whove positioned themselves as 'deeper thinkers than most, who see all sides.' tromp has proven they were just wandering through life as endless marks with their own homemade t-shirts that say 'big smart boy'
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Circ @tinyicecat.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This news is important because all the fucks out there actively attempting to wreck the world want you to think that the work is hopeless and just mitigating the worst case scenario. It's not. Fucking keep going.
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Ook @ooksbooks.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
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Mrs. Betty Bowers @mrsbettybowers.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Jeff Bezos: Men we are *told* are brilliant businessmen, but every time they open their mouths they prove themselves to be ridiculous idiots.
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
As of today, the CDC has changed (reverted) their Covid guidance to make the vaccine recommended for all people over 18. In addition to being a smart public health move, this recommendation also means insurance must cover it. Read more here: www.cdc.gov/covid/hcp/va... Listen to a breakdown here:
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John Hollingsworth @fiatjusticia.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Updated CDC guidelines just came out. 👀 EVERYONE 18+can get the COVID booster and your insurance has to pay for it. More info about kids in the video below, which is excellent. #covid #covidcautious #yallmaskingDC
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I feel you, Daniel L
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Jamie Smart @jamiesmart.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Can’t eat a sandwich until you subscribe to sandwiches. Can’t eat today’s sandwich until it has applied daily sandwich updates. Sandwich now has adverts even though you paid for ad-free sandwich. Can pay again to have less sandwich adverts. Now you can eat the sandwich, but it’s smaller.
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