Richard Hoffman

Richard Hoffman

@chelidon23.bsky.social

Advisor, analyst, writer, strategist, synthesist, heretic. Fixer of things, situations, places and people, sometime member of the 4th Estate, woods-walker, nature photographer, occasional tractor operator #LaughsMuch #NoBS Refugee from that other place

1,434 Followers 1,935 Following 35 Posts Joined Aug 2023
6 months ago
https://www.frommers.com/tips/miscellaneous/trumps-policies-are-making-travel-pricier-and-less-convenient/

Yep. The economic impacts are piling up. Spirit Air, the 7th-largest US carrier, just released a filing noting that there is a significant possibility they will not survive.

t.co/d9f4GJN8em

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8 months ago

Ah, such love. Yeesh.

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9 months ago
Preview
Trump Tariffs Ruled Illegal by Federal Judicial Panel

This is what sanity looks like -- also, by the will and wisdom of the Founders, Constitutionally-mandated separation of powers (no paywall):
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/b...

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10 months ago

This is being overlooked. It’s a must read.

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11 months ago
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Opinion | DOGE says it’s saving $100 billion. It’s about to lose a lot more. Cuts to the IRS will backfire by giving tax evaders a free pass.

"the plan to shrink IRS staff by up to 50% would — very conservatively — lead to a $400 billion increase in uncollected taxes over the next decade. It could easily mean more than $2 trillion in losses..."

www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

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1 year ago

Deeply disappointing, but unsurprising. Putin orders, Trump does.

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1 year ago
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1 year ago
an archival black and white photograph of the KKK marching in Washington DC with the capitol behind them

In light of everything happening, I wrote about how the KKK in the 1920s felt unstoppable, about the people that fought against them anyway, and about how fascism always fails. dansinker.com/posts/202…

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1 year ago
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Opinion | How ‘Woke’ Became the ‘Woke Right’ (and Why It Shouldn’t Surprise Anyone) (Gift Article) From pejoration to semantic broadening, the word has done it all.

As a language geek (including computational & cognitive psycholinguistics), I find this stuff fascinating. Humans are big-brained primates, and primate tribalism is quite "natural," if not always helpful. And "anti-wokeism" is largely virtue-signalling tribalism: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/o...

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1 year ago
Why try Bluesky infographic

I don’t know who made this graphic but it’s pretty good.

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1 year ago

China always plays the long game, and Russia is losing itself one piece at a time. The Chinese on Weibo call Russia 菜鹅 (“weak goose”), 鹅弱死 (“goose weakened to death”) and 大体老师 (“anatomy lab cadaver.”)

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1 year ago

Excellent primer/overview. History matters, not because it repeats, but it rhymes -- patterns evolve, and fit into classes and types. The single best piece of constructive advice is to create, tend and strengthen communities of good (and useful) folks. This is always a good idea, and especially now.

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1 year ago

Didn't want to set off the fire sprinklers...

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1 year ago

There are two real stories here.

1) What motivated these three (anonymous) officials to put forward ideas exonerating Russia and the ships concerned, ideas instantly dismissed by (named) shipping experts as nonsensical?

2) What led the Washington Post to lead on those ideas not the real story?

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1 year ago

Thank you!

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1 year ago
YouTube
Shchedryk / Щедрик. Carol of the Bells. Original Ukrainian Version with English and Ukrainian Lyrics YouTube video by Eileen

The original (Ukrainian) Carol of the Bells. Joy to all, in this blessed season.
youtu.be/GqeJ38DThVc?...

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1 year ago
Official NORAD Tracks Santa

He's on the job. www.noradsanta.org/en/map

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1 year ago

Or, you know, if you flush a toilet at the precise moment of solstice, the water goes straight down. 🤭

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1 year ago
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Gorgeous words. Happy solar new year — the days get longer in the northern hemisphere with each new day from now until midsummer! Welcome, Yule!

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1 year ago
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This last election showed that not enough people know how tariffs work.

Share around so Americans know they will be the ones paying higher costs. Not China, Mexico or Canada.

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1 year ago

I still love my XP-50 with expansion cards. That thing is bulletproof.

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1 year ago

Redolent of cheap grift and tawdry taint.

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1 year ago

Precisely. We have to meet them where they are. It's usually a fascinating place, and makes perfect sense, once you can understand. And then, as they develop, they can become more proficient at meeting us where we are.

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1 year ago

My (brilliant) ASD son had glossolalia and language delay, and learned to speak by reading books and then repeating verbatim chunks of dialogue from those books as appropriate. To understand him, you had to figure out which book/story he was speaking from to know what story was being told and why.

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1 year ago
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Markwayne Mullin on Hegseth’s drinking:

TAPPER: Drinking at 10 in the morning, that’s a drinking problem.

MULLIN: Yeah & there’s probably a lot of media that has a drinking problem too.

TAPPER: A drunk reporter who is drinking at 10 AM…is not in charge of the 3 million person defense department.💥

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1 year ago

Didn't.

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1 year ago
Preview
The Sound of Fear on Air It is an ominous sign that Morning Joe felt it had to apologize for something I said.

This is the most-read piece on @theatlantic.com. It should be the most-read piece. You should all read it, even though it may make you sad. Here’s a gift link so you can read it.

www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

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1 year ago

That's some outstanding attitude right there. And what a beauty.

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1 year ago

These are the same folks who drink their own urine and get their medical advice from YouTube, TikTok and “influencers“ selling quack-medicine supplements. Trump has tapped a Moonbat Coalition of incel cryptobros, angry cranks and crazed cultists.

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1 year ago

Two true classics.

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