iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

The truly disgusting thing is that they practice the exact opposite. They have never felt any obligation to “assimilate” their highly toxic views that most Americans (even now) abhor. No, the majority must submit to lick the boot of the most extreme faction because only they are the TRUE AMERICANS.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I mean, the problem is that the purpose of the reactionary regime was always to reimpose Jim Crow (but national). The fact that strongman rule sounded attractive to some who fell outside the “master race” was just their delusion (“we’re white enough”) and irrelevant to the core believers.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

“Look, a little bit of open warfare and bombing of cities is just part of the normal interactions of states. It doesn’t mean we can’t be courteous and civil to each other. I adamantly refuse to attack Hitler just for being a Nazi and I know the American people are behind me.” -David Brooks, c. 1945

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I like this man and this is exactly what America needs right now: a blunt statement of truth that doesn’t cloak bigotry with respectability simply because it has power.

youtube.com

"If John Lewis were marching today...Mike Collins would be grabbing a Billy club."

YouTube video by C-SPAN

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Spotted an English Civil War helmet in there, and I think a gladiator one. Would love if they released the director’s cut, which sounds more interesting, but it was a box office bomb so… 🤷‍♂️

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Not an automatic trick no, but a necessary foundation perhaps. When Dems maintain an air of civility while Rs slander them they look like wimps. Fighting back won’t necessarily win voters over, but without it they will never believe they mean what they say and aren’t just triangulating for advantage

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I think the “modest” (i.e. apparently plausible) goal of flipping Texas would have enough of a seismic shift to make an impact almost regardless of anything else. Sure, losing in Maine would be a major disappointment, but it would not erase Texas.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The only racially pure Romans were Romulus and Remus and this they should only have had offspring with each other. My final offer. 🤪

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

To hell with Latins, they should have held out against polluting their bloodlines with the Sabines! That would have made them invincible chuds. 🙄

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Funny how no one ever says Cicero… 🤔

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Heh. I gave that talk today. Half-awake students could work out what happens if you kill your soldiers’ families (and your top general) right before an invasion. 🤪

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

To be clear: I don’t mock her because she’s a conservative woman, I mock her because she’s a lying propagandist. I watched her argue in favor of Trump from three different, mutually incompatible positions THAT SHE CLAIMED WERE HER OWN. She just says whatever lies will achieve her goals.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Why would they if they approve of his actions? You don’t have to like somebody to support them. Put another way, Douthat is a snobby fascist while Trump is a vulgar one. Because of that they will often find each other distasteful, but they are ultimately on the same side.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Doesn’t like Trump personally but approves of his policies is a regrettably common position on the Right. They want the jackbooted thugs, but they expect them to be classy and deferential.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Notably absent: the old Prussian center of Königsberg (mod Kaliningrad) as that is owned by their patron Putin.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Multiple continents was an idea that existed since the fairly early middle ages. The divine universe they imagined was a circle split into three: the top half was Asia, with Eden at the farthest east and Jerusalem at the bottom (and center of the circle). Then came Africa and Europe below.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I think the first step is to convince normies that they are. The Right can pour money at the issue because they want it changed. Convincing people to fund just keeping the lights on and explaining to them theoretical future dangers is tough.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Getting to spend most of a class period talking about the Russo-Japanese War as part of a modern world history class this year. But the focus is explicitly on non-Western history, which means I can take a bit more time dealing with the rising Japanese empire than usual.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Actually Robo-Hamlet sounds amazing. “O, that this too too solid steel would melt…” And when it ends with everyone gets stabbed they just wander around soliloquying and looking lost. 😜

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

That is how I remember it. An otherwise excellent book (and it does pretty well with the Japanese side of fighting America) but the subject was limited to that war and not the whole theater. Will have to check this one out (he says knowing how many giant tomes already sit unread on his shelves).

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

768 pages sez Amazon. Which is actually shorter than some of Toll’s trilogy. I’m hopeful it covers Japan’s imperial expansion in a little more detail than Toll did. Will I be disappointed?

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Ian Toll’s books are great. Never spotted Frank’s book. Will pursue.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Interesting. I have this one from same time same place in Penn Museum. Are the details duplicates or did they have a dog walking epidemic in Ur in the 2100s BC?

flic.kr

My Dog Walked Over My Homework (Brick with Paw Prints)

Philadelphia, PA '25 Penn Museum Ur (Iraq), c. 2112-2095 BC (Ur III Period)

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I actually find myself agreeing with this. He should start by not writing this asinine article.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Can’t wait for the next installment: “Literacy isn’t as important as we think” followed closely by “answering questions isn’t as important as we think” and “thinking isn’t as important as we think.” 🙄

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

They truly believe that Leftists (i.e. anyone left of Genghis Khan) represent like 1% of the population, who are only able to impose their views on everyone else because they control the institutions. Destroy those institutions and everyone will be embittered would-be-Hitlers like them. Of course.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Now that it’s been outed… who knows? He may yet just out of rage. Or to distract the betting markets while insiders cash in.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I got in the habit of thinking carefully after writing a response before hitting submit after getting into tedious, time-consuming (not necessarily vindictive) debates. It has resulted in my posting less and reading more, which… is not a bad thing. But by definition poasters will not do it.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

“I come to bury Caesar, not to fuck him.” Or if we can f-bomb in Latin, “et futue te, Brute!”

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

But it was also hit worse by the shattering of federal employment. Not sure that would apply elsewhere. Still good to see 2025 trends continuing. That is a promising sign.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Such men were not seen as gay because such a framework didn’t exist: what mattered was not who you did it with but who played the active role. The biological drives are the same; the means of expression are totally different. And that pattern applies to other areas as well.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Just to take one example: roughly 9% of our population is LGBTQ. The numbers participating in homosexual activity in Ancient Greece were substantially higher than that. That’s not biology, it’s because society encouraged young men (certainly of high social class) to take an older lover/mentor.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

People have the same basic drives and needs, but the way those get expressed is highly culturally dependent. The short answer is that human variation is far too great to expect the same patterns of behavior from groups experiencing similar pressures.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Seeking universal patterns across cultures on issues like this is not going to be productive. Aztecs had a very extensive system of sacrifices and were hyper-militaristic. Culture is downstream of a lot of things and there are few universal truths.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I agree. What I worry about is less whether Dems will win in 28 than whether they will get a landslide realignment level victory or if all this [gesticulates wildly] only produces a thermostatic election win. Because the latter possibility is pretty grim as it gives only narrow breathing room.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

There are dangers in ‘28, mostly due to the question of how far Trump will go to stay in power. We ought to be concerned about shenanigans in R states, which is why capturing some legislatures is important. And low info voters. Do they still turn up without Trump? Other than that I feel pretty good.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Oh well, if you mean actual time spent working that’d be about $7.3 mill per hour. Assuming an hour’s real work a day. And that’s generously throwing in weekends.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Yeah, my math says more like $1 million every three hours. Which is still pretty… wow.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Because nobody believed him (or us) about all the crazy shit he planned to do. Trump’s just being Trump. He’s a great businessman. He’ll make us rich. And his first time in office wasn’t so bad (for the economy) (because people held him back) so Libs are just whining. Try arguing for his sanity now

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I’m reminded of Marie Antoinette playing at being a peasant family with her courtiers. Will our future hold elites entertaining themselves by driving their own cars and, like, remembering where they live? Seems a little bleak.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I do think there’s a point at which MAGAts abandon him. I don’t know that we’ll ever see it. But the one thing they loath is a loser. If he starts to really openly fail in a cascading way anything could happen.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Not sure about Trump, but pretty sure Steve Miller’s head does detach itself and float around the White House. Trump’s face is already a formless mass of flesh with no discernible features. Possibly Trump gets to appear to monks as the lord of demons enthroned, but the monks vote for him anyway?

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

And with CNN and CBS gone there will be even less effort to tell the truth. Traditional media isn’t even the big problem though: social media spreads unhinged conspiracy theories much faster and deeper. Even if Fox tried to moderate, it would only harm its ratings.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Oh man, I really liked those. Pointed them out to my students when we had a field trip there. I know it’s good we’re finally returning illegal artifacts, but still…

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This will be a generational project. It may not take all our lives (unless they kill us all out of sheer malice) but it will take a decade or more. Maybe the extremists in that decade will be shrieking in impotence, but it is highly likely the voters will want to touch the stove again.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Better still, they’re actually heading towards the Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s Alpine retreat.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Couldn’t even manage a decade after the Civil War killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. Color me doubtful this’ll do it. But I’d more than settle for them losing their ability to win trifectas and forcing them to appeal beyond a narrow base instead of going all in on voter suppression.

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

And what does the base do? Now that they’ve accustomed themselves to the idea that they can indulge their id to the extreme and still win elections, what would it take to convince them of the need to self moderate again?

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Stubacca @stubacca01.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

You only need to play the mark until you get what you want. As far as Trump is concerned, he’s been anointed king now and needs to appease nobody. In his zero sum world governed by the fūhrerprinzip this makes perfect sense, and his fury comes from the real world not aligning with his fantasy.

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