iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

I raise that not to be sorry or even to gloat for these poor helpless GOPers. It's an important dynamic that @ddayen.bsky.social and @gregsargent.bsky.social have pointed to: Trump's recent trade moves are DISASTROUS for midterms. So it'll pit GOP fate against Trump's Narcissism.

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

The proper response to Republicans' frantic flopsweat screams about "communism" being a threat to the nation is simply to point and laugh at how desperate they've become.

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

This bit from the NYT Vance story describes basically all of ultra-right-wing chud classics and medievalism: it *feels* ancient or medieval - or what they think that should be - despite actually being very modern, because it fits their neo-fascist ideology.

Text: "One of his favorite prayers, the vice president says, urges the Archangel Michael to defend us in the battle “against the wickedness and snares of the devil,” and asks that “all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls” be cast into hell.

“I really liked that one,” Vance writes. “It felt medieval despite being written in the 19th century. And it felt mystical. You could almost see the angels and demons doing battle.”

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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

I understand the excitement about technology “rediscovering lost texts.” I do, & I get the media hype. But I wish people knew that there are hundreds of thousands of “lost” texts just sitting in manuscripts in libraries, which have never been published outside of those single manuscripts. 1/n

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Doctor Memory @blank.org · 20/06/2026

Folks, I love you all, but you will never lose money betting that _this_ claim by an amateur linguist to have translated Linear A is just as much a crackpot as the last ten. The problem with Linear A is not that we lack clever ideas, the problem is that there’s _only a page and a half of it_.

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Materialist Gnostic @walmsley.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

a foreign policy strategy of weaponized incompetence makes sense for the toxic masculinity administration

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Mike Spangenberg @mikespangenberg.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

We don’t often get NYT column reprints, but I was very glad to see this from @jamellebouie.net in today’s print StarTribune. Really strong piece warning of the dangers of Dems just trying to go back to “normal” after Trump. It’s among Bouie’s best (which is saying something)

Photo of a print op ed by Jamelle Bouie titled “American broke something when it gave Trump a second chance.”

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Uninterested in leading a pile-on but no, AI does not “have access” to everything ever published. Not archival material, obviously, but not secondary material either. Nor across times nor languages. AI is not human knowledge personified. It’s exactly not that, in fact. It’s not even a search engine.

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

There's something that hasn't been said about the vapidity of "have your students correct AI" assignments, but I'm not sure I can quite say it myself. It's obvious that spending class training a machine to produce better sentences about a topic means spending less time learning about it yourself.

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Josh Chafetz @joshchafetz.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

A 51-49 Dem Senate is one in which, for example, many Trump nominees never even make it out of committee, making it irrelevant which way Fetterman or Platner or whomever would vote on the floor.

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The Volatile Mermaid @ohnoshetwitnt.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Imagine if a woman president crashed the economy and started a war with no end in sight, and her biggest, seemingly ONLY concern was building a ballroom and redecorating the White House.

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Mischa Hooker @pseudepigraphon.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

In the midst of the Homer translation wars, I stumbled upon iliadtranslations.com — allows you to compare selected passages in a range of existing Iliad translations, giving an AI-assisted compare/contrast. Seems quite useful — I’ll be watching to see how it grows. Includes 20 translations so far.

homertranslations.com

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Michael McFaul @mcfaulmike.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

This is the same man who has been begging to be given the Nobel Peace Prize.

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

I think it is both important and really difficult for folks to distinguish between 'rampant war crimes' of the sort that Russia, for instance, does in Ukraine as opposed to reduced but still very horrible amount of civilian suffering that a war waged according to law and custom entails.

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Another university getting rid of things you could only ever do at a university and replacing them with stuff a 13-year-old can do on a phone

Post from Andrew A.N. Deloucas
@aandeloucas.com:

In line with discussion about the job market, the latest majors being closed at Syracuse University:

Nine majors "sunsetting":
• Classical civilization
• Classics (Greek and Latin)
• Digital humanities
• Fine arts
• German
• Latino-Latin American studies
• Middle Eastern studies
• Modern Jewish studies
• Russian
ALT

The First University in the Nation to Build a Center Dedicated to the Creator Economy
Syracuse University is creating something that doesn't exist anywhere else in higher education.
The Center for the Creator Economy is the first academic center of its kind on a U.S. college campus. Led jointly by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the Martin).
Whitman School of Management, the center reinforces Syracuse University's commitment to bold, forward-looking academic leadership.
By aligning strengths in entrepreneurship, media, communications, athletics and digital infrastructure, the University is charting how higher education can prepare students for the 21st-century economy.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

This story is fucking insane: *A Trump crony pursued a teen model who flew to US on the Epstein plane *When the relationship went sour as he pursued other women, and she married someone else, the crony set ICE on her. *Now she is deported.

Ms. Ungaro was a 17-year-old model when she arrived in New York for the first time in 2002, flying on Mr. Epstein’s plane from Paris with her French agent. She never saw Mr. Epstein again, she said in an interview. But later that year, she met Mr. Zampolli, then 32, at a Manhattan nightclub.

Mr. Zampolli wooed her as a client, she said, persuaded her to move to the United States and began a romantic relationship with her that would last two decades. Mr. Zampolli said this didn’t happen until Ms. Ungaro was 19.

At the tail end of Mr. Trump’s first term, Mr. Zampolli was appointed to the board of the Kennedy Center. He moved to Washington for a short time with Ms. Ungaro and their son.

But by 2023, she was fed up. Mr. Zampolli had made headlines for his boisterous parties filled with younger women, and for passing around explicit text messages between himself and a woman he claimed was a sex worker.

Ms. Ungaro left Mr. Zampolli, moved to Florida and married a doctor from Brazil. Their son went to boarding school and then lived with her, and the former couple fought over custody of him.

Then, last June, Ms. Ungaro and her husband were arrested.

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Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

Trump saying things has no probative or epistemic value whatsoever, including as to his own state of mind and intentions We all know this, by now. And yet somehow the lesson does not sink in

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Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 01/03/2026

They are literally trying to convince you that starting a war is ending a war.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

I've radically revised and expanded this piece to try to keep up with the torrent of bullshit coming from the administration. The key point remains: there was no imminent threat to America. This is a war of choice lacking a single compelling justification. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-reason...

donmoynihan.substack.com

The reasons Trump gives for attacking Iran

It does not add up to much

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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Thing is, I don't really believe that Israel forced the US's hand here, no matter what Rubio may say. The US just doesn't take actions it does not want to take. What is actually happening here is much darker - Rubio is using Israel as a scapegoat to avoid taking US responsibility for the war.

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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

-Zero Congressional consultation or approval. -Zero preparation of public for need/consequences of war. -Zero evidence of thought about "OK, what might the other side do?" Next month. Next year. -Zero mention of anti-nuke agreement Trump voided, or Trump claim last year that nukes "obliterated."

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Trevon Logan @trevondlogan.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) stepped down from his position as Senate Minority Leader position after praising Strom Thurmond’s 1948 Dixiecrat presidential campaign in 2002. Today Republicans are defending and deflecting the president’s post of a video depicting a Black President and First Lady as apes.

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Mischa Hooker @pseudepigraphon.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

5 Classes from College: * Early Christian (Greek) Literature [1-on-1, 3 hrs once / week, chose my own syllabus] * Vergil and the Hellenistic Tradition [English readings, but revelatory on intertextuality] * Pagans, Christians, and Jews * Dead Sea Scrolls * Indigenous Languages of the Americas

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Mischa Hooker @pseudepigraphon.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Angelos Sikelianos, “The Delphic Word” (1927), translated by Alma Reed — parallel Greek and English text, with English narrated by Mischa Hooker: youtu.be/4x-QD2BtpxU?...

youtu.be

Angelos Sikelianos - The Delphic Word / ΔΕΛΦΙΚΟΣ ΛΟΓΟΣ ΤΟΥ ΑΓΓΕΛΟΥ ΣΙΚΕΛΙΑΝΟΥ (1927)

YouTube video by pseudepigraphon

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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

This kind of intellectual firepower is usually only found at unaccredited colleges in Austin

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Billy Bragg @billybragg.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

I wrote this yesterday about the hero city of Minneapolis www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKOW...

youtube.com

BILLY BRAGG - CITY OF HEROES

YouTube video by Billy Bragg

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 19/01/2026

fantastic piece from my colleague @polgreen.bsky.social that gets at something i have been thinking about. what, exactly, is the administration's strategic goal in minnesota? what does "victory" look like for trump and miller?

nytimes.com

Opinion | In Minneapolis, I Glimpsed a Civil War

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

If the basic project is expanding and straightening the American empire, everything this administration has done - destroy soft power, wreck alliances, abandon shared ideals, withdraw for the intl institutions America built, and general erratic behavior - will have the opposite effect.

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Elizabeth N. Saunders @profsaunders.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

I was also wrong in thinking he wouldn't bomb Iran in June. Why? Because Trump has been bluster with the occasional very targeted bomb. Starting wars against countries has not been his style. But with zero constraints on his foreign policy now, his aggressive instincts face no check. 2/

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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Seeing a lot of people forget what happened with Manuel Noriega. I would be shocked if Trump did not rely on that as precedent. Added bonus: after the US was done with Noriega, we sent him to France for more criminal prosecution. One of the alleged shipments Maduro was involved in went to Paris

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emptywheel @emptywheel.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

While the Senate is asking Trump why they started a war to kidnap a foreign leader perhaps they might also ask why Trump freed a former foreign leader convicted of the same kind of crimes.

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Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

fwiw it’s been about six weeks since Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras who had been convicted of trafficking drugs into the US

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

A more accurate characterization was that Hitler was a remarkably charismatic individual who reflected, in extreme form, the prejudices many Germans already felt, whose ideas and policies were both morally horrible and also prudentially bad, bringing ruin to his country and death to his countrymen.

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Flint Dibble @flintdibble.bsky.social · 01/01/2026

In a world dominated by AI & disinformation, I expect we will see a major pendulum swing culturally. People will crave authenticity and reality over deep fakes and conspiracist lies I'm here for it, sharing #RealArchaeology

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 28/12/2025

'Heritage American,' noun. 1) An American insufficiently committed to the founding values of the United States. 2) An American actively betraying those principles. 3) A white supremacist euphemism used by [2] to mean 'white people.'

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"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

This is extremely dumb for a variety of reasons but perhaps the most obvious is that the Romans didn't apply their adoption law to grants of citizenship. I cannot communicate how basic an error he is making here. Staggeringly elementary, a thing you learn in Roman Civ 101.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 22/12/2025

it really is something that no one affiliated or allied with trump seems to have any sense of how to use power with subtlety and finesse.

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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 20/12/2025

The DoJ made it easy to download everything that they released, which any experienced journalist does with document dumps by default (even if they don’t make it easy). So deleting without explanation is just dumb. It’s never going to work. It’s going to directly draw attention to what you delete.

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Nicholas Sarwark @sarwark.org · 18/12/2025

“European and American liberal democracy is so dangerous to their project, in fact, that the MAGA ideologues seem to be planning to undermine it.”

theatlantic.com

The Longest Suicide Note in American History

The Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy targets liberal democracy itself.

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Max Boot @maxboot.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

What oil, what land, what assets did Venezuela steal from the US? And when? A social media post from an alternative reality.

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George Pearkes @peark.es · 11/12/2025

54 points underwater with independents, good lord. apnorc.org/projects/tru...

Chart showing approval ratings for Overall, Democrats (5 approve 94 disapprove), Independents (20 approve 74 disapprove), and Republicans (81 approve 18 disapprove).

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Josh Marshall @joshtpm.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

I will believe AI is a thing when Google maps realizes that I don’t wanna take a total freak show route to where I’m going to save a minute and a half on a one hours drive. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

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AkivaMCohen @akivamcohen.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

Gotta watch the last 20 seconds of this, it's brutal

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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

so it is very apparent that 1) You are not going to be able to know for sure who or where an order came from, much less if it is legal 2) The President and SecDef will disavow any order that retroactively proves to be unpopular or risky

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Robert "The Bobby Yaga" McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

Journalist challenge: Use “Machine Learning” when you mean machine learning and “LLM” when you mean LLM. Ditch “AI” as a catch-all term, it’s not useful for readers and it helps companies trying to confuse the public by obscuring the roles played by different technologies. 🧪

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Mischa Hooker @pseudepigraphon.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

Classics factions: (1) Owning Loebs is stupid because they’re online; (2) Loebs are elitist because they imply that Classicists need to know Latin / Greek; (3) Loebs are an embarrassment because they imply that Classicists don’t know Latin / Greek very well; (4) Loebs look pretty on the shelf.

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Laura Jedeed @laurajedeed.bsky.social · 17/11/2025

Man I'm pretty drunk but I sure do love America All its low-down dirtiness and cosmopolitism and revolutionary ideas about souls created equal by God with the inalienable human right to rule themselves This messy beautiful place. No one can talk me out of my love for this stupid fuckin country

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Mischa Hooker @pseudepigraphon.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Audiobook of Philo of Alexandria’s “On the Creation” (De opificio mundi) youtu.be/7ezM71GEhJY?...

youtu.be

Philo of Alexandria: On the Creation / De opificio mundi

YouTube video by pseudepigraphon

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