Charlie Thomas

Is this true, @golikehellmachine.com?

bsky.app/profile/did:...

I honestly am more curious about this Shield of the Americas thing. I guess he isn't getting the juice and attention he wants out of the Board of Peace and so has rolled Venezuela and Argentina into something?

Oh and I guess Venezuela nowadays as well. OAS will be thrilled I am certain.

I am assuming some sort of Hemispheric Board of Peace they are still cobbling together. It will be us, Argentina, and the Bolsonaro Government-in-Exile and somehow be funded to the tune of $6bn dollars.

He is, according to the administration he is part of, the Undersecretary of War for Policy. Who would be the person to ask here?!

slowly becoming radicalized about grouse and quail

OPEN THE (PME) SCHOOLS!

River transport in Timbuktu, Mali
ca. 1897
#archivesxt

Same. I had gone in initially with the idea I was smart and so would just smart my way through it all, had some personal problems, and didn't even know how to reach out for help. When I went back I realized it was about consistency, meeting expectations, and understanding I was paying for all this.

I did not expect to start my morning with @jamellebouie.net dropping some Clausewitz in a short form video, but I've definitely had worse starts.

To be fair, I failed out of undergrad and worked some goddamn awful jobs before going back to school, which made a deep impression on me.

“Some jobs are pointless”

Hell yeah brother

“Like the departmental admin who makes me do the Title IX training”

Hold up

-Mounted bodyguard to the Sheik of Bornu in chain-mail armor and turban, carrying a spear.
ca. 1824,
Nigeria.

-A Mossi merchant,
ca. 1892,
Burkina Faso.
#ethnographxt

By BEN LEFEBVRE 03/05/2026 05:00 AM EST f • • • President Donald Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is telling his advisers to bring ideas to the Oval Office to lower gasoline prices in the wake of the U.S. attack on Iran, according to two energy industry executives familiar with the conversations. The White House is "looking under every rock for ideas on improving energy prices, especially gasoline prices," said one of the executives, who was granted anonymity to describe internal administration discussions.

I have an idea. Here’s my idea: We should have had this meeting last week before we started bombing Iran. www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

Chotiner: You've made the claim that no one has ever fed you in your life.
My Cat: Maow.
Chotiner: Yet there's food in your dish right now.
My Cat: Maow.
Chotiner: Let's change the subject to the ripped-open bag of sandwich bread on the floor.
My Cat: Maow.
Chotiner: I have read different things.

My main complaint so far with the new @ifbookspod.bsky.social is that they are being far too kind to Graeber. Admittedly also the subreddit currently features a whole lot of people angry they are fisking it at all while admitting “okay well so his data source was worthless to build this argument…”

On Tuesday, the US president posted on Truth Social that the US International Development Finance Corporation would provide insurance “at a very reasonable price . . . for the Financial Security of ALL Maritime Trade, especially energy, traveling through the Gulf”. The DFC is nominally charged with providing aid to poorer countries along with advancing US security interests. But Trump has increasingly used it to backstop the White House’s military ambitions, including by supporting critical minerals projects. And he’s selected Ben Black, the son of disgraced Apollo financier Leon Black, to lead it. The younger Black lists experience in private equity at Apollo and as an M&A attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell (though his CV is thinner on developing-world aid).

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

"Leaders with good intentions for their people have nothing to fear."

—Ghana president John Mahama, calling on African heads of state to ratify the protocols of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights

myjoyonline.com/maha...

Kinda great to see Arriola getting a little more love lately (and having that account on here that Abby tagged is a fine thing). Certainly check out said Wikipedia page; I highly recommend getting a copy of this.

This reminds me of when I was a PhD candidate during comps (prelims). I was surprised that *I* had to put together all 3 of my reading lists instead of my committee. But then I realized that the act of compiling was an important learning experience.

I can only imagine the nanoseconds of being a shift cook at Waffle House that Elon would accomplish before getting his ass beaten by his own crew mates.

Headline of a Q&A in New Yorker formatting Headline: A panicked middle-aged man refuses to tell me directions to the bathroom. Subhed: Please, I just have to pee. I'm in a hurry. By Isaac Chotiner March 4, 2026

Excuse me. Oh, God. Oh, no. Holy shit. Get away from me. I was wondering if you knew where the bathrooms are. Look, I'm ... it's not a crime to scroll through your high school girlfriend's Instagram account. We remained friends after high school! I was at her wedding! It's only natural to see how she's doing.

I'm in a bit of a hurry, and I'm afraid that if I choose the wrong corridor, I'll be late for my train. I think they're down that way, but I'm actually from out of town. Please stop talking to me.

Real quick, though. I agree that it's natural to be interested in an old friend, but aren't you afraid about the message you might be sending by liking a picture of her at the beach from 2015? If that did happen, and I'm only going off your word, it was probably an accident. They put the ... scroll bars or whatever ... close to the thumbs up button. People have been complaining about that for years. I've been complaining about that for years.

One of the first things I learned as a professor is that accommodations don’t make the class/assessment easier — they just make it inclusive. Doing a moral panic on accommodations is just gross and ableist.

A Ben Ryan tweet, complaining about Michael Hobbes claim that therapists are able to tell gay from trans: I can assure you, having spoken to child psychologists at length about this very question, that they are not the bearers of some sort of cosmic intuition that discerns gay from trans in children. Nor has the field of pediatric medicine sought to systematically grapple with this question of how to separate one child from another. Some of the biggest names in the field simply leave the matter up to the kid, asserting that kids "know who they are."

How does Benjamin Ryan think therapy works?

Here he’s challenging @michaelhobbes.bsky.social claim that therapists know the difference between gay kids and kids who are trans.

How do therapists know a kid is depressed other than “trusting the kid?”

Wind blowing clouds over the peaks.
#dailycrazy
#Montana
#Mountains
#Nature
#Photography
#Distraction

TIL modern torpedos don't typically aim for impact - they create a pressure difference underneath a ship that destroys the vessel.

during covid when we were all trying to find new hobbies, i tried to pick up paper cutting. i was not very good at it, but i did enough of it to understand how stunning this is