PenguinKitty

“Socialism has created the illusion of quenching people's thirst for justice: Socialism has lulled their conscience into thinking that the steamroller which is about to flatten them is a blessing in disguise, a salvation.”

🚨 Florida becomes the first state to sign a law stopping foreign nationals from China/Russia from buying babies in the United States via commercial surrogacy. HUGE step forward in protecting citizenship, national security, and the best interests of women and children.

@BasedMikeLee The Modern Classic “Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic & longs for a leader attuned to the will of the people. It’s totalitarian, viewing everything as political & any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good”

What Democrats think fascism means: Republicans What fascism actually means: a far-left, authoritarian ideology focused on creating a highly centralized, dictatorial state that subordinates to the state all aspects of society—economy, culture, media, education, and private life

The Anglo-Saxons have been in Britain for about twice as long as the Maori have been in New Zealand. It makes you wonder why the Maori are called "indigenous" to New Zealand while Britain is called a "nation of immigrants".

@BretDevereaux you understand what the entries with "of X; A, B" mean, right? Does it mean that the entry can be used to mean X, A, or B? Or does it mean it can mean A or B (as rendered in English), only when referring to X?

@OpStCyprian Me always confused when I see “OrthoBro” Is it braces for your teeth or your knee?

I would like to thank the Orthobros for publicly demonstrating that baptism doesn’t automatically regenerate a person.

@LexDecs Dennis Miller’s answer to Absurdist Theatre “This just in: Godot finally showed up. He was rude and we asked him to leave”

They ever figure out what’s beyond good and evil? Maybe even what’s beyond that?

This minister was arrested for reading John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes him shall not perish but have eternal life.” What could perish is free expression as regulators target bad "influences." jonathanturley.org/2026/05/13/ire…

@TrumpTruthOnX Cyrus the Great

🇺🇸 Evangelical leaders gathered at Mar-a-Lago to bless and dedicate a gold statue of Donald Trump.

@sun_girlxo Summer of Middlemaxxing.

Middlemarch is the easiest 5-star rating I've ever given. This has been my most ambitious read of the year so far, yet it doesn't feel that way at all because I loved every second of it. I now understand why it's considered the best English novel ever written, or why Virginia Woolf called it "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." One can point to dozens of reasons for Middlemarch's genius, but the one I want to discuss is the novel's mastery of truly morally gray characters. You often hear about the importance of writing and reading about morally ambiguous or even undeniably unlikable characters, but many of the novels that attempt to do that fall flat or try too hard. What makes Middlemarch stand out is its honest portrayal of "unlikable" or "morally gray" characters -- they are fallible humans with psychologies so deep and complex that you could easily mistake them for real people coming in and out of your life and walking around your hometown. In fact, it's not so simple to say that any of George Eliot’s characters are unlikable. For those who insist that Casaubon or Bulstrode or Lydgate or maybe even Rosamund are unlikable, I think doing so completely misses the point of the novel. Eliot takes pains to make sure she understands her characters so fully that she does not judge them, and implores us to do the same. How many times, for example, has she paused her narration of Casaubon's jealousy to remind us that we must see where he's coming from -- that doing so, while it wouldn't justify his actions, would at least humble us in our harsh judgements, and make us better citizens of the world? How many times has she empathized with "poor Rosamund" in the midst of her childish schemes? Or Bulstrode -- perhaps my favorite psychological profile -- whose grief over the moral blights of his past crescendos into a severe breakdown that is at once devastating and wholly expected. Dorothea is obviously the prime example of the kind of person Eliot wants her readers to grow into: forgiving, independent, passionate. Throughout, we callbirate our sense of what's right and wrong against Dorothea's and recoil at our similarities to the gossiping townspeople. Eliot has formed her characters and let them live their lives, and what emerges is exactly what you would expect from each one of them. It is rare to come across a book that is so protective of life. What a gem. I'm so glad I read Middlemarch for my month-in-the-title reading challenge. goodreads.com/review/show/59…

@lukeburgis Paul visits Twitter in Greece “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas”

Augustine had a word for the vice of the internet age: curiositas. It doesn't mean "curiosity", but rather a disordered desire for knowing stuff regardless of its real value. It is the intellectual twin of bodily lust—the following of ephemeral passions without regard for consequences or what they're leading to. It's the act of knowing stuff as a form of possession; as if knowing everything that the latest Dwarkesh podcast guest had to say has any real value in itself.

@Svigel Dad was a Depression-Era Iowa farmer saved in ‘39 at a small Evangelical Lutheran Church. He lived long enough to experience the advent of contemporary worship I fondly recall him not singing along with the guitar & repetitive lyrics, but humming classic hymns to himself instead

Theology 101: When I think carefully about the recited words of most prayer books and liturgies, I’m often moved by their profundity; but when I think carefully about the sung words of some praise and worship songs, I’m often troubled by their stupidity.

@dwaldenwrites Found on YouTube, will repost forever

None of the defenders of “western civilization” has ever encountered it, exhibit number eleventy-zillion. Guys please get off the internet and read some books. Plato is a great start.

@VirgilsQuill And General Patton thought he actually was all of them.

Napoleon wanted to be Caesar. Caesar wanted to be Alexander. Alexander wanted to be Achilles. To subvert Achilles is to subvert the entire canon of Great Men, which is exactly why they do this.

“The Hand That Rocks the Cradle Is the Hand That Rules the World.” William Ross Wallace 1865

“Socialism defies logic. You see, it is an emotional impulse, a kind of worldly religion, and nobody has the slightest need to study or even to read the teachings of its early prophets. Their books are judged by hearsay; their conclusions are accepted ready-made.”

@gavinortlund We all struggle with practical polytheism every day. We just don’t think of priorities as “worship” in an ancient sense.

The Bible proclaims one God who is uncreated and eternal and made everything else. Other entities called "gods" in Scripture are generally either (1) angels/demons or (2) not actually existent. We can use the term "monotheism" for this. truthunites.org/2025/04/02/fin…

“The test of democracy is not whether the people vote, but whether the people rule.” G.K. Chesterton

@radiosmith @HSRdirector Should always be a minimum of four, with a soundtrack.

Only two options tonight at the Columbia Faculty Club