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Ook

@ooksbooks.bsky.social
229 followers 244 following 578 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
Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 15/10/2026
I think the Court has vestigial authority: that is, we respect its rulings (to the extent that we follow them, and by "we" I mean "people in this country") because we don't want to tear the entire thing down, because that's a lot of work and it's not clear we will get something better out of it.
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beetle moses @beetlemoses.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Three panel comic. Panel 1: a little dog is sleeping on a couch, kicking its paws. A person says, “look! The little kicks!” Panel 2: in awe of the cuteness, the person continues, “what do you think he’s dreaming about?” Panel 3: in the dog’s dream, the pup is wearing a captain’s jacket, holding tightly to a wooden ship on stormy seas. In his other paw, he is gripping a harpoon as an enormous vacuum cleaner breaches violently from the water.
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Patrick Wyman @patrickwyman.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Slavery was and is a real thing that has brutalized hundreds of millions of people over the course of human history, if someone tells me a fucking chatbot is enslaved I'm immediately throwing hands. It's not cute, it's not intriguing, it's an insult to real people who suffered and suffer now.
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 22h
Could someone make a list of all the people who are supposed to be grateful according to Mr. Super Unlikeability 2028?
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Rep. Zooey Zephyr @zoandbehold.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Let's go, Sam Forstag! That's how you stand up for trans people on the national stage. If congressional candidates in western Montana—one of the most competitive House races in the entire country—can stand up for trans folks in every aspect of our lives, democrats everywhere should take note.
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Leah Reich @leahreich.com · 13/10/2026
Ah yes, perhaps the most beloved literary trope of all: the classic McMuffin
A screenshot that reads: Moore throws in a Hitchcock-style McMuffin in the shape of a secret tape recording which will reveal just who has been betraying the gangsters.
The problem is that no-one has a machine on which to play it.
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Evan Bernick, a finite mode with a smol hooman and a lorg floof @evanbernick.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
I am entirely serious when I say that this should be seen as a moderate position. It specifically and surgically dismantles institutions that did not exist pre-9/11 and assigns their functions much as they were assigned pre-9/11.
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Claire Willett @clairewillett.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
after so many years of Civility™️ and Reaching Across the Aisle™️ and Bipartisanship™️, we are so hungry for anyone to just flat-out say “are you a whole-ass criminal y/n, trick question it’s yes and we have proof” right to their faces it hits like ice-cold peppermint schnapps
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Excerpts from Michael Lewis on DOGE (Guardian article). 1. Gavin Kliger, white nationalist, refused to shake hands with the Black IRS staffer who briefed him on privacy issues. Or pay attention. Kliger now has a defense start-up valued at 1.4B thanks to DOGE. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
Phyllis, who loved working for Kathleen and saw falling on hand grenades as part of her job, never told her how this one had felt. She knew Gavin had expressed enthusiasm for white nationalists, and he likely knew that she knew. She tried to break the ice by walking in with her hand extended; Gavin stared at it and declined to shake it, though he had shaken the hands of the white men who had offered them. “He was kind of cool towards me,” said Phyllis. Before she could even start the briefing, he said, You know, I’ve heard these rules before at other agencies. Yes, she said, but these rules are different, because no other agency is governed by this privacy law, and this law can get you thrown in jail very quickly. As she walked him through the basics – how you can’t use your personal phone for business, how if you happen to so much as glimpse a form 1040 with someone’s name on it you must avert your eyes – Gavin played on his phone. “He’s multitasking right in front of me, typing and texting,” said Phyllis. “It was, here’s a routine that I must endure.”
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Kristian G. Andersen @kgandersen.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
What amazes me about MAHA and the peptide (and so, so, many other "health") craze, is the fact that the FDA was created for a reason and that reason hasn't changed one bit since the dawn of modern medicine. Nor will that reason change, no matter the number of uninformed podcasters and "influencers".
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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
I said this in a thread last night and in a thousand threads before it, but you really are doing the work of those who would destroy democracy and the rule of law when you are a doomer. You can be aware of — and vigorously oppose — the lawlessness of this administration without insisting on doom.
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Again, we don't need chapters about "what DOGE might have been if the people involved had had any decency at all." We need to send these people to jail forever for unprecedented crimes. We really need to <not> spend anytime on "right idea, wrong execution" right now (bsky.app/profile/mcop...).
slate.com
The Guy Behind The Big Short and Moneyball Is Back to Take On Elon Musk and DOGE. It’s a Roller Coaster.
Michael Lewis’ Blockers tells the stories of good public servants driven away by the Trump administration.
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Tyler, from the Internet (Haunted) @tylerfromtheinternet.com · 11/10/2026
people keep making movies where the premise is "it's kind of like a man but it looks like a monstrous freak but it's nice and sexy and doesn't abuse the woman so it's basically the most romantic thing ever" and men keep not getting it.
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Jody Rosen @jodyrosen.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
It's true, there's no precedent in French history (nor, uh, at the Bastille) for popular protest or property destruction. Great point. No one tell history-buff & self-styled francophile Thomas about Gustave Courbet & the Vendôme Column. He might short-circuit & issue another Open Letter
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 09/10/2026
huh, interesting that vance thinks this is the worst terrorist attack and not oklahoma city
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 11/10/2026
This is kind of wonderful, Alison Brown wrangled a handful of pretty decent old bluegrass guys to play “Old Town Road”. Nas X’s impact… immeasurable youtu.be/a_GCX5IoCds
youtu.be
Alison Brown & Steve Martin - Old Town Road (feat. Del McCoury & Dan Tyminski)
YouTube video by Alison Brown
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Wendy Miller @burrowingowl.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
"How are we doing? Fuck you, that's how." 🪶
Three damp, miserable burrowing owls standing in the mud.
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Sarah Taber @sarahtaber.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
We've lived for so long with this mythology that sure, the wealthy can be cruel. But at least the cruelty has a point. Profit! I'd like us to open our hearts to other possibilities. Power doesn't just corrupt! It can also breed truly reality-distorting levels of incompetence.
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Rachel Fairbank @sweetsciencewriter.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
“The children who are randomly selected not to receive the birth dose of the vaccine, those who “lost the lottery”, face in their earliest days the risk of contracting hepatitis B, which can cause irreversible lifelong damage.” No words. I am speechless. This violates all ethical boundaries.
theguardian.com
Controversial vaccine trial touted by RFK Jr gets go-ahead in Guinea-Bissau
Recommended dose of hepatitis B vaccine will be withheld from thousands of newborns by Danish researchers
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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Your occasional reminder that the Founding Fathers were not psychic democracy angels descended from Heaven but problem children spot-welding a first of its kind system together while both (often) being drunk and (always) hating each other.
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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
It's extremely corrosive to civil order that we hear "Trump is breaking the law" and most people think "when I break the law I am *minimally* involved in a drawn out cruel display of state power and *maximally* deprived of my freedom" and for actual members of the government its a "whoopsie".
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Jenn Budd @jennbudd.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
“ProPublica found that DHS has turned its vast apparatus on tribal members, with 24-hour surveillance directed at an ongoing border prayer ceremony and tribal members being questioned outside the reservation about their ceremonial activities.” www.propublica.org/article/toho...
propublica.org
As Trump’s Wall Closes in, DHS Intimidates a Border Tribe With Surveillance, Masked Agents and Drones
For decades, the Tohono O’odham Nation collaborated with DHS to stave off a border wall. Despite their cooperation, the Trump administration is barreling forward with a project that would divide their...
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alix e. harrow @alixeharrow.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
the year is 2030 and i no longer consume anything that isn't personalized to me. every game, every book, every movie extends to the limits of my own imagination and no further. i haven't been surprised in five years. i cry softly, in bewilderment, if i see a word i don't know
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Dr Sam Hirst @romgothsam.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I found it! Really captures the essence of the text
A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift featuring a couple in a very brown and sparce forest. He is kneeling to propose. His clothes are inexplicably shiny and her hair is inexplicably big. She is wearing a massive red dress.
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Laura Bassett @lebassett.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
“If you don’t like public executions just don’t watch it” says the crowd trying to ban drag shows and books
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Ook @ooksbooks.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Love the dog snoozing beneath what appears to be a depiction of its ancestor.
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 09/10/2026
Aminata Seck has been freed. "I'm just ready to go back to school, get my master's and get this surgery done,” she said. ICE kept her in pain in detention for two months for no reason. www.espn.com/womens-colle...
espn.com
Kentucky State player released on bond from ICE custody
Kentucky State University women's basketball center Aminata Seck was released on bond Wednesday after spending two months in ICE custody.
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Tom Marcinko @tommarcinko.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
In which @doctorow.pluralistic.net cites this gem. “Undeterred by fines and warnings, 94-year-old electronics billionaire Barre Seid has been accused of creating a “public health hazard” by paying henchmen to feed park animals en masse.”
gizmodo.com
A Billionaire Is Fueling a Rat Explosion in a Chicago Park in the Stupidest Way Possible
Undeterred by fines and warnings, 94-year-old electronics billionaire Barre Seid has been accused of creating a “public health hazard” by paying henchmen to feed park animals en masse.
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Cass Morris @cassmorriswrites.com · 09/10/2026
So when I say that the Citizens United decision is among the very worst of the modern age, this is what I mean. It opened the door to so many ills -- including the things that got us the SCOTUS we have now and all of their disastrous opinions.
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K.B. Spangler @kbspangler.com · 09/10/2026
I love imagining the 3000-years-ago warrior with a specific vision who found the one metal smith in China who was all like “…yes. Yes! YES!!!”
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Ook @ooksbooks.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
It’s how 90% of uses for AI sound to me. And yet, I am more sympathetic to the child devouring eldrich horror birds.
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Patrick Cosmos @veryimportant.lawyer · 09/10/2026
There should be a political party that wants to stop this and punish the people doing this
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Ook @ooksbooks.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
The first live performance I saw post-quarantine was a local take on Into the Woods that had been waiting for a year to be performed, and damn, was it good. Baker had me crying with, “Can’t we just pursue our lives, with our children and our wives? Till that happy day arrives, how can you ignore…”
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Altogether Ooky Doktor Zoom @doktorzoom.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Kid Zoom just told me about one internet tradition I was not previously aware of: "Spiders Georg." Look it up yourself. Yay. I'm living out XKCD 1053 today! Also hooray for Susan Hoover, who described/transcribed the cartoon here, as copypasted into the alt text. uh-ir.tdl.org/server/api/c...
The title is Ten Thousand. The comic has two panels.
The left panel says: I try not to make fun of people for admitting they don't know
things. Because for each thing "everyone knows" by the time they're adults, every
day there are, on average, 10,000 people in the US hearing about it for the first time.
Fraction who have heard of it at birth = 0%. Fraction who have heard of it by 30
approx = 100%. US birth rate is approximately 4 million per year. Number hearing
about it for the first time is approximately 10,000 per day.
The right panel has two stick figures. A box at the top of the panel says: If I make fun
of people, I train them not to tell me when they have those moments. And I miss out
on the fun.
Stick figure 1 says: Diet Coke and Mentos thing? What's that?
Stick figure 2 says: Oh man! Come on, we're going to the grocery store.
Figure 1 says: Why?
Figure 2 says: You're one of today's lucky 10,000.

The hover text says: Saying 'what kind of an idiot doesn't know about the Yellowstone supervolcano' is so much more boring than telling someone about the Yellowstone supervolcano for the first time.
The gist is, if we scoff at people for not knowing X or not using Y, not only is that
unkind, but you lose out on the fun of teaching someone something new and fun and
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useful.
Ironically, when I described the interactions I had observed, and their relationship to
this comic to a couple of people yesterday, neither one of them was familiar with this
particular episode, so they were two of yesterday's lucky 10,000, who now get to find
other people to introduce to the concept of supportive enlightenment. And now that
you have all been introduced or reintroduced to this comic, you have the opportunity
to spread it forward.
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Ook @ooksbooks.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Spiders Georg, for me, is only exceeded by Put Baby In Pelican Mouth.
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Ook @ooksbooks.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Sondheim’s Assassins is so relevant to today, I am half-convinced it’s cursed, The Scottish Play-style.
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Gillian Brockell @gillianbrockell.com · 09/10/2026
Can someone near him please take away the T Injections, for the sake of our country?
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shaunt @shaunvids.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
i'd vote for that. sounds refreshing
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 09/10/2026
This afternoon in Marble Hill, a New Yorker was shot by an ICE agent in a residential neighborhood. Early reports indicate agents surrounded him and a 5-year-old child in his car before firing multiple rounds. We believe the child was physically unharmed.

This is an unconscionable and incredibly serious situation. I have called the President; when we speak I will demand that he ends all ICE enforcement actions in our city. I will not stand by while ICE agents terrorize our communities.

Our thoughts are with the injured New Yorker and his family tonight. We are praying for his recovery.

Get ICE out of our neighborhoods. Get ICE out of our hospitals. Get ICE off our streets. Get ICE away from our children.

Abolish ICE.
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Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 09/10/2026
A Tennessee appellate court has ruled that the killing of a woman may have been justifiable because she was trans. The court reversed a conviction, stating that the killer could have a new trial because the jury did not know the woman killed was trans. Trans panic in the modern era.
erininthemorning.com
Killing of Woman May Have Been Justifiable Because She Was Trans, Tennessee Court Rules
The case is a bitter reminder of the ways LGBTQ people have had their identities weaponized by the courts in the past, most notoriously through a legal defense tactic known as gay or trans “panic.”
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Ook @ooksbooks.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Only if the shooters intend to kill you cleanly and not prolong suffering, which unfortunately isn’t reliably the case.
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The Irish Times @irishtimes.com · 06/10/2026
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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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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