Plastic Paddy
@paddyunidos.bsky.social
Me: Washingtonian interested in politics, history, music, & movies.
My pictures: Super Autocrat Typewriter Ribbon in Galway Bay.
My pictures: Super Autocrat Typewriter Ribbon in Galway Bay.
In the 1968 Czech futuristic sci-fi film Ikarie XB-1, a derelict satellite holds the bodies of fat cats gathered round a gambling table to show the decadence of vanquished capitalism, and it hits harder than ever.
December 13, 2025 at 9:32 PM
In the 1968 Czech futuristic sci-fi film Ikarie XB-1, a derelict satellite holds the bodies of fat cats gathered round a gambling table to show the decadence of vanquished capitalism, and it hits harder than ever.
Hard to believe we ever lived without the game changing technology behind AI summaries.
December 12, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Hard to believe we ever lived without the game changing technology behind AI summaries.
Just finished Holzer’s Lincoln at Cooper Union and I think @jamellebouie.net recently referenced this quote:
November 29, 2025 at 10:14 PM
Just finished Holzer’s Lincoln at Cooper Union and I think @jamellebouie.net recently referenced this quote:
They never say the second half of the proverb
November 27, 2025 at 11:29 AM
They never say the second half of the proverb
The premise of Konings’ Capital and time is that speculation is a feature not a bug of neoliberalism, a strategy to hedge against and uncertain future by ending the market your position, making it too big to fail.
![Passage from Konings’ capital and Time: “The way I leverage off others’ uncertainty is by inducing them to invest in my promise to hedge against the uncertainties they face. Through a leveraging operation, I seek to insinuate myself into the way others comprehend their own conditions of reproduction. That way, when others respond to unanticipated circumstances and unimagined problems, they are likely to draw on the resources that my normative position makes available, thereby fortifying my centrality in the social fabric. To highlight the leveraging logic of specularity this shifts the emphasis away from the ability to accurately calculate risk toward how actors seek to institute their own promises as the relevant unit of calculation. Economic power depends not just on knowing but equally on *being known* in a context of pervasive uncertainty; it derives from the ability to serve as a central point of reference in the speculative logic of contingent claims. In other words, leverage is not just about increasing my exposure to the world, but about increasing the world’s exposure to and investment in the risk I am taking. It is a distinctly secular from of sovereignty, bound up not with the possibility of transcending the ordinary field of risk but with the possibility of “transforming [one’s] own risks into the danger of all others” (Vogel 2014: 153)”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:zlniaw5rfdia3ti7bwlhmgei/bafkreie5juwg7ditd4kyapdlvxtkohpn5c7f4qumyptryguikurf4uv7qq@jpeg)
November 25, 2025 at 2:12 AM
The premise of Konings’ Capital and time is that speculation is a feature not a bug of neoliberalism, a strategy to hedge against and uncertain future by ending the market your position, making it too big to fail.
Willie Mays was indeed the best position player of all time and I want to point out that if you visit the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory you can hold a bat he once used
November 8, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Willie Mays was indeed the best position player of all time and I want to point out that if you visit the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory you can hold a bat he once used
Dem fundraising emails starting to get it
November 7, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Dem fundraising emails starting to get it
ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME
October 24, 2025 at 9:20 PM
ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME
DID YOU KNOW:
You don’t have to pay Comcast to help them do this. You can find another Internet or phone provider or - barring that - reduce your services (and therefore payments).
Tell them why today!
www.xfinity.com/support/cont...
You don’t have to pay Comcast to help them do this. You can find another Internet or phone provider or - barring that - reduce your services (and therefore payments).
Tell them why today!
www.xfinity.com/support/cont...
October 24, 2025 at 8:55 PM
DID YOU KNOW:
You don’t have to pay Comcast to help them do this. You can find another Internet or phone provider or - barring that - reduce your services (and therefore payments).
Tell them why today!
www.xfinity.com/support/cont...
You don’t have to pay Comcast to help them do this. You can find another Internet or phone provider or - barring that - reduce your services (and therefore payments).
Tell them why today!
www.xfinity.com/support/cont...
You and the bassist for the Damned
October 15, 2025 at 10:58 PM
You and the bassist for the Damned
This is Ziblatt’s argument in Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy: that, with a weak party of the right unable to actually compete in elections, it creates space for far-right party to emerge, outflank, and outcompete it.
October 7, 2025 at 2:32 AM
This is Ziblatt’s argument in Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy: that, with a weak party of the right unable to actually compete in elections, it creates space for far-right party to emerge, outflank, and outcompete it.
Louisville, KY has a higher violent crime rate than Chicago, IL
September 28, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Louisville, KY has a higher violent crime rate than Chicago, IL
WaPo editorial board, more and more:
September 27, 2025 at 5:21 PM
WaPo editorial board, more and more:
Gonna be invoking Lincoln’s Second Inaugural a lot:
September 18, 2025 at 12:17 AM
Gonna be invoking Lincoln’s Second Inaugural a lot:
Subbotnik Warriors
![Subbotnik and voskresnik (from Russian: суббо́та, IPA: [sʊˈbotə] for "Saturday" and воскресе́нье, IPA: [vəskrʲɪˈsʲenʲjɪ] for "Sunday") were days of volunteer unpaid work on weekends after the October Revolution, though the word itself is derived from суббо́та (subbota for Saturday) and the common Russian suffix -ник (-nik). The tradition is continued in modern Russia and some other former Soviet Republics. Subbotniks are mostly organized for cleaning the streets of garbage, fixing public amenities, collecting recyclable material, and other community services.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:zlniaw5rfdia3ti7bwlhmgei/bafkreigwa5o55snzaetx7od6ubjxeqt6kafuhog4uwiht5o5hxlr2vokhu@jpeg)
August 27, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Subbotnik Warriors