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synthminded.bsky.social
Synthminded
@synthminded.bsky.social
170 followers 590 following 740 posts
I seem to mainly be posting things related to Tanuki lately… Tanuki Earth… | Video Editor of The Confabulators https://bsky.app/profile/theconfabulators.bsky.social
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synthminded.bsky.social
But airbagged… will you believe in….
November 10, 2025 at 12:12 AM
synthminded.bsky.social
Post something random from your phone
Ducks from Little Nuns by Diva/hyxpk These two are in the rain, using binoculars. The one in the foreground is shocked and falling backwards in a puddle, tossing their set in the air as rain bounces off them Behind them the other Duck stands in wet grass, in front of short bushes that tower over their ducky size, nervously shifting from foot to foot as they look through the lenses, eyes magnified several times. Nearby them is the traditional Little Nuns hidden chicken, a brown rooster with a red comb and wattle, heavily obscured by a rock hiding much of them from view
November 8, 2025 at 11:17 PM
synthminded.bsky.social
Also please have this extremely anachronistic meme based on listening to this weeks show and my childhood of watching perhaps way too much Nick At Nite:
Peter Brady “we’re having pork chops and apple sauce” meme from the Brady bunch, but instead he’s saying “I’m looking for lemons and apricots” which was apparently enough phonetic and syllabic overlap that my brain put these two things together Bonus fun fact: did you know that a striped shirt makes reading backgroundless subtitles overlaid over said shirt almost painful to visually separate out, let alone read? I learned that making this!
November 6, 2025 at 11:03 PM
synthminded.bsky.social
Let me gently suggest that John, in his understandable frustration, is not perceiving this situation clearly. What he's overlooking is that the Democrats operate according to the Iron Law of Institutions. The Iron Law of Institutions is: the people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself. Thus, they would rather the institution "fail" while they remain in power within the institution than for the institution to "succeed" if that requires them to lose power within the institution. This is true for all human institutions, from elementary schools up to the United States of America. If history shows anything, it's that this cannot be changed. What can be done, sometimes, is to force the people running institutions to align their own interests with those of the institution itself and its members. I'll get to back momentarily to today's Democrats, but first it's useful to look at how the Iron Law plays out in other cases. At the country level, Saddam Hussein is an extreme example: during his thirty years in power, he made choices that led to the obliteration of Iraq—not because there was nothing else he could have done, but because choices that would have strengthened Iraq would have made him less individually powerful within Iraq. And this is a constant occurrence in the history of dictators. When Stalin purged many of the Red Army's most competent officers in the late thirties it made the Soviet Union itself far weaker—in particular, more vulnerable to a Nazi invasion—but what mattered to Stalin was eliminating internal rivals to his power. The same dynamic is displayed in less virulent form with Bush and Cheney: whenever they've had to choose between sharing power with others within a stronger America, and holding more power within a weaker America, they've chosen the latter. Probably the best writing about this at the political party level was done by the late Walter Karp. Karp points out in Buried Alive that before the 1972 elections there was a huge influx of new people and energy into the Democratic party from the anti-war and civil rights movements. This was enough to get McGovern nominated. But here's what happened then, as Karp describes it: “As soon as McGovern was nominated, party leaders began systematically slurring and belittling him, while the trade union chieftains refused to endorse him on the pretense that this mild Mr. Pliant was a being wild and dangerous. A congressional investigation of Watergate was put off for several months to deprive McGovern's candidacy of its benefits. As an indiscreet Chicago ward heeler predicted in the fall of 1972, McGovern is "gonna lose because we're gonna make sure he's gonna lose"...So deftly did party leaders "cut the top of the ticket" that while Richard Nixon won in a "landslide," the Democrats gained two Senate seats.” Could McGovern have won if he'd been fully supported by the status quo powers with the Democratic party? Impossible to say. But they didn't want to take any chances: they preferred to make sure he lost the election, because his winning it would have meant newcomers would dilute their power within the party. That's the Iron Law of Institutions in action.
November 4, 2025 at 10:18 PM
synthminded.bsky.social
Dan have you seen that one of the upcoming weapons for the mini season is Moe’s “Turn Five Guns into One Gun” gun?
November 4, 2025 at 8:55 AM
synthminded.bsky.social
Mild apologies for breaking this perfect retweet number count:
The above post being replied to, but you can see it has exactly 666 reposts on it before I reposted it the 667th time
October 30, 2025 at 11:34 PM
synthminded.bsky.social
October 30, 2025 at 11:53 AM
synthminded.bsky.social
October 30, 2025 at 11:44 AM
synthminded.bsky.social
October 30, 2025 at 11:40 AM
synthminded.bsky.social
I will post something random but you? You don’t have to, YOU ARE FREE, THIS BRANCH ENDS THE CURSE FOR YOU
Kyuryuga frees you Frees you with his adorable cat staring
October 30, 2025 at 7:48 AM
synthminded.bsky.social
Book cover: The Highest Law in the Land How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy By Jessica Pishko “A leading authority on sheriffs investigates the impunity with which they police their communities, alongside the troubling role they play in American life, law enforcement, and, increasingly, national politics. The figure of the American sheriff has loomed large in popular imagination, though given the outsize jurisdiction sheriffs have over people’s lives, the office of sheriffs remains a gravely under-examined institution. Locally elected, largely unaccountable, and difficult to remove, the country’s over three thousand sheriffs, mostly white men, wield immense power—making arrests, running county jails, enforcing evictions and immigration laws—with a quarter of all U.S. law enforcement officers reporting to them. In recent years there’s been a revival of “constitutional sheriffs,” who assert that their authority supersedes that of legislatures, courts, and even the president. They’ve protested federal mask and vaccine mandates and gun regulations, railed against police reforms, and, ultimately, declared themselves election police, with many endorsing the “Big Lie” of a stolen presidential election. They are embraced by far-right militia groups, white nationalists, the Claremont Institute, and former president Donald Trump, who sees them as allies in mass deportation and border policing. How did a group of law enforcement officers decide that they were “above the law?” What are the stakes for local and national politics, and for America as a multi-racial democracy? Blending investigative reporting, historical research, and political analysis, author Jessica Pishko takes us to the roots of why sheriffs have become a flashpoint in the current politics of toxic masculinity, guns, white supremacy, and rural resentment, and uncovers how sheriffs have effectively evaded accountability since the nation’s founding.”
October 29, 2025 at 8:31 PM
synthminded.bsky.social
Previous post of mine: “To this day my take on Frankenstein is Mary Shelly subtly saying “Percy and Lord Byron should never be left in charge of raising new life.””
October 26, 2025 at 4:01 AM
synthminded.bsky.social
[I may have, at the earliest opportunity, went and found Tanuki to draw in the game, which unlocks the ability to place dozens of them in your base]
AC Shadows base early on, slowly being filled with raccoon dogs
October 22, 2025 at 10:21 PM
synthminded.bsky.social
Just a reminder about what kind of politics Sanae Takaichi has, an old Huffington Post Japan article excerpt from the 2010s, via a tweet by professor @mrjeffu.bsky.social as the LDP voted her into party leadership: pbs.twimg.com/media/G2ZwHI...
"Quotations from the 1994 Hitler's Election Strategy book that Takaichi recommended: We believe that Hitler-who in a short time unified public opinion, seized power, and established the Third Reich-offers very important lessons for thinking about modern electioneering. (p.2) Standing on the side of the masses, listening to the voice of the masses, and appealing to the hearts of the masses-these political methods seem to me to be a political strategy that fits perfectly in today's confused era and age of mass culture. Leaving the historical judgments about Hitler's authoritarian rule and the Jewish question to later generations, the political strategy that Hitler advocated-making clear whether something is white or black, friend or foe, and fighting that foe relentlessly—is the same logic as the election result of "win" or "lose." (p.3) There is only one sure method to win an election: the candidate must have a strong conviction. I examined modern electioneering's sure-win methods by drawing from Adolf Hitler's theories of politics, organization, and propaganda-the man who once established the Third Reich. Hitler's political strategy is based on mass propaganda. This is exactly a strategy that applies to modern election campaigns. [pp.10-11) "Voters you cannot persuade should be eliminated." This "elimination" does not mean killing people. It means operations to prevent them from engaging in any political activity. If they are left as they are, they may become a strong force for the opposing camp. (p.35)
October 21, 2025 at 9:23 AM
synthminded.bsky.social
I’m not sure VA’s flag *needs* a redesign. I mean look at this metal fucking thing:
The flag and seal of Virginia, which bears “Virtus” embodied as a Victorious Greek Amazonian goddess, clad in blue. She wields in one hand her spear and in the other a parazonium, sheathed and cradled in her other arm. Beneath her feet lies a fallen tyrant clad in purple Roman garb, his crown flung aside behind them. Text above and below them reads “VIRGINIA””SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS” (“Thus unto Tyrants”)
October 19, 2025 at 12:26 PM
synthminded.bsky.social
A hamster making a disgusted face A kangaroo looking at something with confusion Azuki, the Hondo Tanuki, looking into the face of the world with distress and confusion A wolf making sad eyes is curled up in snow; the text “It’s all so tiresome” is subtitled across it
October 19, 2025 at 7:32 AM
synthminded.bsky.social
...he right out *explained it to the fucking press* how you couldn't say "******" anymore, so you went with *alternatives* that other white supremacists knew meant black folks! It's why Ehrlichman admitted in '94 that the War on Drugs was literally a cover to go after black folks and leftists!
In a new article for Harper’s magazine, journalist Dan Baum reports that President Richard Nixon’s domestic policy chief, John Ehrlichman, admitted that the war on drugs was designed to have precisely this impact on the Black community. In a 1994 interview, Mr. Ehrlichman said, “You want to know what this was really all about?” He went on: “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or Black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and Blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.” President Nixon’s creation of a war on drugs to criminalize Black people amplified the presumption of guilt assigned to Black people since slavery and entrenched the racialization of criminality that began in earnest with lynching. - https://eji.org/news/nixon-war-on-drugs-designed-to-criminalize-black-people/
October 16, 2025 at 8:24 AM
synthminded.bsky.social
@tolkoto.com here’s the Star Trek game you wanted to remember the name of:
Cover to Star Trek: Judgment Rites for PC
October 15, 2025 at 8:26 PM
synthminded.bsky.social
Photoshop Edit of Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here," but the title now reads "Well I Guess Its Fucking Happening Here" in black text over a solid orangish-red background. As it's based on the signet classics edition, it has a stylized black star over the "'s" in the title, where the apostrophe and s are rendered in negative contrast to the black text, and framed such that the punctuation and letter are partially obscured by the star, as if it was a cut out revealing a deeper layer underneath that is yet partially covered.
October 14, 2025 at 11:27 AM
synthminded.bsky.social
NPR’s ombudsman this afternoon:
October 10, 2025 at 7:39 PM
synthminded.bsky.social
T A N U K I

E A R T H
A photograph of earth with four Tanuki pasted over and around it with “TANUKI EARTH” written down the center in Japanese
October 10, 2025 at 6:07 PM
synthminded.bsky.social
Why would you buy a shitty Trump watch when you could have this sweet #KamenRider Den-O watch instead

j-hobby.net/pb/1440176.h...
A promo image of a kamen rider themed wristwatch. The watch has a layer of sand in a clear pocket over the watch face like the Imajin form from. Th Watch also has a glowing green version of Den-O’s symbol The sand can shift in the transparent chamber over the face for a pleasing effect
October 10, 2025 at 6:20 AM
synthminded.bsky.social
I’m just saying, most of these fucks who profess to be god fearing Christians just wipe their ass with their scriptures.
Matthew 25:34-46 34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ 44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ 45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ 46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
October 8, 2025 at 7:01 PM
synthminded.bsky.social
A meme of Quattro (Char Aznable) from Zeta Gundam, with an edited subtitle. He stands in front of a window, the lights of the city filling the view behind the sheer curtain, and says, “isn’t there any way to send all [tech oligarchs] to outer space?”
October 6, 2025 at 6:55 AM
synthminded.bsky.social
Muku the Raccoon Dog of Ichikawa City Zoo passed away today

Rest in peace, little smiling prince

#Tanuki #RaccoonDog #Muku #たぬき　#タヌキ　#ムク
A parody cover of the PSP game The Third Birthday. Instead, it is The 12th Birthday, to celebrate Muku the Tanuki’s birthday this past summer. The PlayStation logo instead reads “PonStation,” as “pon” is a sound commonly associated with raccoon dogs. The T for TEEN ESRB logo is instead T for TANU
October 4, 2025 at 11:27 PM