Frosty
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wdfrosty.bsky.social
Frosty
@wdfrosty.bsky.social
Diplomat. He/Him. Opinions expressed are mine, etc.
Reposted by Frosty
I agree with this. A solid understanding of stats is incredibly useful for navigating the world (and knowing when you’re being bullshitted) in 2025.
One of the greatest errors in K-12 education, in my opinion, is prioritizing trigonometry and calculus over statistics. Yes, trig and calc are important for many professions. Statistics are important for literacy.
oh noooo
September 6, 2025 at 5:17 PM
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this is basically how I feel about rainbow capitalism

is it obviously insincere horseshit? yes

it is still much better for society as a whole that companies are expected to performatively signal their support for marginalized people, it helps set the norms

we’re seeing the alternative now
my modest disagreement is that i think it is important to signal virtue even if, privately, you are a piece of shit. performing decency is an important part of maintaining the norm that decency is part of a well ordered society.
you are SUPPOSED to signal virtue. The actual argument, such as it exists, is that people are signaling virtue while not actually being virtuous. But you are supposed to signal virtue and BE VIRTUOUS.
July 13, 2025 at 2:17 PM
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American tourists are broadly known for being pretty pleasant and for dropping huge, huge, huge loads of cash, like when it is at all possible American tourists are the tourists that they want
It's funny how Americans think they're seen as terrible tourists abroad when we have gigantic spending power that makes it easy for most foreigners to overlook a lot worse than what we put them through lol
Stop worrying about being an "ugly American" when you go abroad, it's the English the locals dread coming to town.
May 28, 2025 at 1:36 AM
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Just call it the Self-Inflicted Wound Era, when we took a bunch of stuff that was working largely fine (vaccines, weather monitoring, friendly relations with like 175 countries, cancer research, renewable energy credits, the FAA, global trade, etc etc) and just broke them for giggles
May 24, 2025 at 8:18 PM
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Can’t really put into words how good @socialistdogmom.bsky.social’s Weird Little Guys is. Both the best history and current events show going. Not just because of the relevance but the painstaking thoughtfulness of every episode. Makes you feel privy to a deeper truth and secret history of the US.
May 4, 2025 at 8:02 PM
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To make a serious point:

What made Francis a good (in relative terms) Pope, was regret.

He was vocal that he felt he had made mistakes during the Argentine Junta era. He was determined to do better.

The best leaders accept their flaws and channel them to do better. He was a unique modern Pope.
April 21, 2025 at 12:26 PM
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These are the same people who say “Robert Frost said ‘Good fences make good neighbors’” when it’s the idiot neighbor who keeps repeating that in the poem, thoughtlessly, as Frost mocks him for it.
April 10, 2025 at 1:26 AM
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Ass-backwards to imagine “survival” as “How can I make sure nobody else gets MY stuff?” when actually surviving always means “How can WE make sure everybody has what they need?”
April 10, 2025 at 1:23 AM
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Arrest ICE.

(Seriously, this is what happened in the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue. The rescuers were jailed for violating the Fugitive Slave Act until the deputized enslavers working for the marshals were also arrested and charged with kidnapping.)
“He told agents they had the wrong guy, but they aggressively ordered him to get on the ground. They didn’t allow him to show ID to prove he’s a citizen and instead they grabbed him, put him face down on the pavement, handcuffed him and took out his wallet.”

www.mlive.com/news/ann-arb...
U.S. citizen mistakenly detained by ICE outside Michigan courthouse speaks out
Immigrant rights advocates are concerned what happened outside a Michigan courthouse may be part of a larger problem.
www.mlive.com
April 7, 2025 at 6:36 PM
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If you are not furious at what our government did to these people, there’s something wrong with you.
“Our client, who was in the middle of seeking asylum, just disappeared.”

Lindsay Toczylowski represents 31-year-old Andry, a gay makeup artist from Venezuela who was flown to a notorious prison by the Trump administration after seeking asylum in the U.S.

MORE: www.cbsnews.com/news/venezue...
April 7, 2025 at 2:55 AM
Reposted by Frosty
Yes. But I think we in the media are at fault here. We are creating the impression that being “smart” about politics means understanding how a policy will be assessed by swing voters in Wisconsin, as opposed to understanding the policy itself.
this goes for more than just pundits. less ventriloquizing about the electorate/working class/marginalized and more just saying what you want please
I think punditry would be a lot healthier if people made the case for their policies and position on the merits first rather than framing everything they advocate for as a good electoral strategy. 90% of the time, it's what they support on the merits, so just make that case.
March 29, 2025 at 7:13 PM
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We have had nearly two decades of panic about Free Speech on Campus and not a single case, not even the ones they made up, were as bad as what's happening now
This is the text of the email just sent to hundreds of international students telling them that their visas have been revoked due to activism or social media posts.
March 29, 2025 at 2:24 PM
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thinking of one of abraham lincoln's great quotes this morning:

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."
March 27, 2025 at 2:55 PM
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honestly i would have argued that ontological evil did not exist before this administration
March 21, 2025 at 3:26 AM
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Let it be noted that the Democratic politician with as much proven crossover appeal as any in the country has done it while making a point of not giving in to the resegregators and transphobes.
March 20, 2025 at 8:10 PM
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Ironically, a thing that even a cursory glance at critical race theory would help the oppressors understand.
In khalil’s letter he says “I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear.” This is extraordinarily magnanimous of him but it gets to a true thing I think. Oppressors are also in need of liberation
March 19, 2025 at 3:15 AM
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I think another thing to call out is that this is also why the fight for trans rights is so powerful. Trans and nonbinary people aren’t just fighting for their own freedom from gender stereotypes; they’re liberating all of us from them.
March 19, 2025 at 3:19 AM
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The institutional Democratic Party is guided by an almost pathological level of conflict avoidance in almost every direction. “What can we do to make the least number of people mad?” is just a bankrupt way to operate.
March 13, 2025 at 10:23 PM
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proselytization is fucking rude and violent leave me ALONE
March 13, 2025 at 4:08 AM
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Civil servant source says DOGE has made agencies much less efficient: "Work has ground down to a stunning degree and management is spending a significant amount of time responding & preparing to respond to the chaos incited by the never ending barrage of EOs & accompanying memos"
Many make no sense🧵
March 6, 2025 at 8:30 PM
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Interracial marriage did not cross 50% approval in the US until 1996, when I was 30 years old. Good political messaging drives opinion, it doesn't follow it.
March 6, 2025 at 9:11 PM
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utterly fucking astounding that any Dem would look at what’s happening and think that giving this administration sweeping new authority to prosecute speech on the internet is a good idea
It’s time to repeal Section 230. We must be able to take social media companies to court for addicting kids and enabling drug trafficking on their platforms.
Sen. DURBIN: Fentanyl often gets to our kids and young people through the internet.

Section 230 absolves social media companies from any responsibility. “That has got to end.”
March 7, 2025 at 12:48 AM
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This is exactly it.
Supporting bathroom, sports and healthcare bans for trans people means signing on to a moral panic about problems that DON'T EXIST.

When people say Democrats should "moderate" on these issues, they are suggesting that we legislate a group out of public life based on lies.
March 7, 2025 at 2:14 AM
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If the Democrats want to betray trans individuals then the Democrats also need to be ready to betray all queers, of any flavor, because in the real world the anti-trans movement and the anti-queer movement share a 99% overlap.
I think my biggest problem with the "debate" over whether Democrats should abandon trans people is how divorced from reality it is.

Republicans are banning gender-affirming care because they think kids are being rushed into surgeries. THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.
March 7, 2025 at 2:54 AM
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"listen to biology" falls apart completely as soon as you actually know anything at all about biology

biology, nature, life, and humans as part of all of these things, are queer

queerness exists

queerness does not require coersion or grooming or manipulation or persuasion

it exists, inherently
This is the news we deserve.

“These are the 1st images of humpbacks having sex, and they're both males

'It was not what I was expecting,' says biologist Stephanie Stack”
These are the 1st images of humpbacks having sex, and they're both males | CBC Radio
Photographers Hawaii captured what scientists say is the first documentation of humpback whale sex.
www.cbc.ca
March 6, 2025 at 6:26 PM