If starting letter-writing campaigns to get your most unworldly and insignificant political enemies killed was a sport...

I can never decide which was the slimier piece of shit between Bernard of Clairvaux and Erasmus.

I think his slight, floppy-haired appearance actually enhanced the effect (until he got the obligatory Argentinian footballer tattoo upgrade & started looksmaxxing). He embodied every child's unbeatable underdog fantasy.

Yeah, but Messi in particular was basically an anime protagonist for the first decade of his career. Wherever he went, be it La Masia or the ARG U20 team or Stamford Bridge, people hadn't heard of him & underestimated him until he got the ball & unleashed the left foot of God.

Impeccable footballing taste for 20+ years.

(doing belly time on carpet kicking feet in air, pensively) computer… play me rainforest noises. hmmm. increase ape sounds by 20%. yes… excellent

Watched the Supercopa final with my dad & he reminded me that I used to be a big fan of "that short guy" when I was a kid... the bow-legged one... ah, the one who did commercials for Lay's—you know, he plays in America now!

I was actually surprised my Messi fandom left such a deep impression on him

I’ll be there in late March-early April!

I will claw my $3000 by any means necessary, but I can already tell this will be the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

💀

The only thing worse than being told you have to use SAP Concur to get your travel expenses reimbursed by the university is learning that, because you are a lingering ghost of cohorts past & no longer an "employee" of the institution, you have to follow a whole separate process for "vendors."

College cats of Oxford Once upon a time, we featured an image of Magdalen's kitten, Ozymandias, in our newsletter. We figured it might be a gentle contrast to our regular diet of planning and local politics. The grey ball ...

Walter de Staplecat, Simpkin IV, Teabag, Balthasar and Benny D Cat take the stage as we meet the college cats of Oxford. And, of course, Magdalen’s Ozymandias. Read on for our photo special. (Includes a cat map.) oxfordclarion.uk/college-cats...

(I say that like I didn't watch a whole video of a cargo train dragging another train and give it a like before heading to Wikipedia to learn all about this new technological wonder.)

Alstom Coradia Stream EMU arrives in Bulgaria for testing / ЕМВ на Алстом пристигна в България! YouTube video by Ivo Radoev

The Bulgarian national railway operator has purchased a bunch of modern electric trains from a French manufacturer courtesy of the French taxpayer and the first unit arrived for testing a few days ago.

Bulgarians are acting like it's the Concorde lmao

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sfh...

We might take the letter as a laudable attack on the sexual exploitation of the socially inferior: confessors w/ their confessees, monks of oblates &c. But Damian (as w/ Alain of Lille's Complaint of Nature) seems to be unable to conceive of sex between people of equal rank, between *men* in short

cover of Matthew Cullinan Hoffman's translation of Peter Damian's Book of Gomorrah

Just read the intro (75 pages) to a Very Catholic translation of Peter Damian's 11th-century letter to the Pope Leo IX on sodomy, called, since the 14th c, The Book of Gomorrah. Having just taught Damian's letter in David Rollo's translation (for Brill), I thought Hoffman would be enlightening.

Have fun and stay safe!

Cover of Speculative Whiteness by Jordan S. Carroll

Hugos were last night, and just grabbed the winner of Best Related Work and read on a train journey - it's a quick read, tracing fascist tropes and fascists through sci-fi. Especially good on fascists readings of works and also proto-fascist nerd-wish-fulfilment Mutational Romances.

The World's #1 Sushi Restaurant That's Impossible To Book YouTube video by Alvin Zhou Films

My virtual restaurant tour continues... Can't deny this guy would probably be a better employer. The way he introduced his apprentices like they're the Avengers was cute.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE9q...

Massive congrats! Can’t wait to read another Jeremy classic later.

В Бургас животът е така.

Saw the new Superman with my friend who works for NATO and when they showed the LuthorCorp building she whispered, “That’s where my next job is going to be.”

(In fairness, someone else was using it, but I found the image too funny not to share.)

There’s a modest half-pipe ramp in my local park and this is how the youth make use of it.

This is a very troubling claim: someone who the Lemkin Institute - genocide experts - clearly believes is an expert in photo interpretation says there is evidence of an expanding mass grave near the CECOT prison in El Salvador… where the Trump regime sends detainees.

The US US discovered debt as a natural resource around 2000, and has been exporting it ever since.

Excellent article by @bhgreeley.bsky.social

on.ft.com/40NNZmt

Paris, BnF, MS n. a. l. 1628 – copied at Monte Cassino ca. 1075 under the supervision of its translator, Constantine the African. The text is called the Isagoge and it was composed in Arabic in the 9th century by Hunayn ibn Ishaq. The script of the present copy is called Beneventan. Source: Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de France (Gallica).

It never gets old. I'll be talking about this MS at #IMC2025 ( @imc-leeds.bsky.social) tomorrow. And I can sit here, in Phoenix, consulting it online tonight. It was written sometime around 1075 at the monastery of Monte Cassino, under the supervision of its translator, Constantinus Africanus.

Ma Yuan's studies of the properties of water, southern Song Dynasty China, ca. 1190 - 1225 CE
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