brike

I’m Ozyman! Who are you?
Are you - Mandias - too?
Then we’ve a pair of legs!
No trunk! Our visage lies - in sand!

Our sneering - passions - yet survive!
Our pedestal does say -
“Despair, you Nobodies” - the Sands -
Stretch level far away!

I can never remember if I was drugged in the Epstein Ballroom, or balled in the Epstein Drugroom.

Three people in inflatable frog costumes and a couple of American flags. In the background, people holding protest signs. Blue sky, palms and other trees.

From the No Kings protest in St Pete (Pinellas County) Florida this morning. Good energy. Large crowd along Tyrone Boulevard near 66th Street. Road traffic full of honking and thumbs-ups, including many heavy-duty trucks. That was a highlight - I did not know so many of them were on our side.

i take jay’s side on this one; i read how i like. i think samuel johnson (1709-1784, and one of the great readers of the english-speaking world) would agree, and dispute the point about algorithms.

screenshots are from boswell’s life of johnson (1791).

AI result from Google claiming that Nabokov’s playful quote "ne manque pas de dire à ton amant, Chimène, comme le lac est beau car il faut qu'il t'y mène" is from Le Cid by Pierre Corneille.

some shit it makes up is funny. nabokov might have appreciated this misattribution:

NYTimes headline “Trump Uses U.N. Speech to Make False Claims and Lecture World Leaders” from online front page, with image of a deranged, exhausted, and rotten-orange-peel-looking trump speaking at the UN.

Remarkable how the tone of the New York Times has changed.

AI Overview from google claiming that the quote "ne manque pas de dire à ton amant, Chimène, comme le lac est beau car il faut qu'il t'y mène" is from the play Le Cid by Pierre Corneille.

that said, here’s a real howler from yesterday (for the nabokov and corneille fans out there):

i agree. also talking to a younger version of yourself (“answer as if you were me at age 35”).

and modeling good behavior. “the four of us just had a fight at the dinner table…play that scene back to us, showing each of us being 10% calmer, gentler, and more generous.”

Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, said in a statement on Saturday that the investigation "was subjected to a full review by F.B.I. agents and Justice Department prosecutors. They found no credible evidence of any criminal wrongdoing."

“The case against Homan is no stronger than the case against Epstein.“

One year ago today!

Happy Tom Homan Takes a $50,000 Bribe From Undercover FBI Agents On Camera Day!

the deep state keeps making me accept bribes.

“I hereby pardon myself for all crimes, including the one I am hereby committing.”

Dutch late night TV has its take

Donald Rumsfeld in his “known unknowns and unknown unknowns” days.

There are things we’re not allowed to talk about.

And there are things we’re not allowed to talk about not being allowed to talk about.

Agreed - an absurd and pretextual response. If I put myself in MAGA shoes, what I’m mad at is the humiliation Kimmel served on my big man. That deadpan “he’s at the fourth stage of grieving: construction,” coming after that video clip, is both devastating and funny.

he wants to piss in every corner of the house before he leaves

As this article shows, those three points are all wrong. (i forgive my oncologist for his bad politics - he has a high-stress job, he’s amped up to face his patients for the day, and he needs to vent. but he is wrong about this stuff.)

#cansky #oncosky #cancerbs

(3) even if an important university study is defunded, it will still go on, because ambitious med school students and young doctors will jump in to fill these jobs and thereby raise their status.

His points: (1) the studies being cancelled were diversity studies, not prevention/treatment studies, so they don’t really matter. (2) most funding for cancer research is done by big pharma, not universities, so canceling university funding doesn’t matter.

I wish I had a larger audience to share this with. It’s a long read but important. The article demolishes the dubious points defending the funding cuts that I recently heard from my oncologist. (He’s a good doctor with bad politics.) 🧵

Just read this, based on your recommendation. It’s great.

To the tune of Queen’s ‘Bicycle Race’:

I want to read the Epstein FILES
I want to read those files
I want to read the EpSTEIN FILES
Those unredacted names for miles

bsky.app/profile/cool...

Peaceful • hépíng • 和平

When I say war I mean it very peacefully.
我说战争，我的意思是很和平的。
Wǒ shuō zhànzhēng, wǒ de yìsi shì hěn hépíng de.

You guys put podcast hosts in charge of the FBI and fired all the competent agents because you thought they were woke.

To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a fascist, everyone looks like a foreign invader.

School/campus • xiàoyuán • 校园

A school-shooting-promotion company has acquired a school-shooting-prevention company. “This is called ‘synergy’.”
一家校园枪击推广公司收购了一家校园枪击预防公司。“这就叫‘综效’。”
Yījiā xiàoyuán qiāngjī tuīguǎng gōngsī shōugòule yījiā xiàoyuán qiāngjī yùfáng gōngsī.“Zhè jiù jiào ‘zōngxiào’.”

bsky.app/profile/brik...

harold bloom was a defender of the traditional western canon and “probably the most famous literary critic in the english-speaking world.” that the quran is college reading material is neither new nor lefty/progressive/woke.

Page from The Western Canon by Harold Bloom (1994), with this text highlighted: “…the crucial work is the Koran. Whether for its aesthetic and spiritual power or the influence it will have upon all of our futures, ignorance of the Koran is foolish and increasingly dangerous.”

Jacket cover of hardback volume The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages by Harold Bloom (1994).

Publisher info page from The Western Canon, showing Copyright 1994 by Harold Bloom.

yes! “[o]nce the reader is conversant with the bible, homer, plato, the athenian dramatists, and virgil, the crucial work is the koran…” - harold bloom, ‘the western canon’ (1994).

Almost • chàdiǎn • 差点

That indecent drawing almost made me puke.
那幅不雅的画差点让我吐了。
Nà fú bù yǎ de huà chàdiǎn ràng wǒ tǔle.