Physicus Patricius

Physicus Patricius

@physicus.bsky.social

Physics professor. Anti-extremist, whether Left or Right. Deeply embarrassed American.

255 followers50 following1K posts

If I find out anyone has illegally accessed whatever information about me may be available on federal computer systems, I will be submitting a formal criminal complaint naming that specific person or persons to the New York Attorney General's office.

If you have superuser privileges, the command sudo rm -rf /etc basically bricks any Linux-like computer system. The Elon Musk boys who have full access to the US government's payment systems can now, at any time, type this or a similar command into a console to brick the entire US economy.

We've betrayed Canada, our closest ally. Their rage towards us is justified, as are whatever retaliatory measures they take. And let's retire the "please remember half of us didn't vote for him" thing -- they know. Not their job to reassure us Blue Americans that we're still good people.

If you have a Dem Senator and/or Representative, you are not allowed to be upset by their inaction on confronting Trump until you've emailed or called them. And you're only allowed to be upset for 24 hours. To extend it, you have to email or call them again. Make sure to use the word "primary."

When this is all over one day, we need a series of Constitutional amendments putting serious constraints on the President’s powers to do massively disruptive things without Congressional approval.

(1/2) I just emailed the following to my Senators and Representative, all Democrats: I am a physics professor at [institution]. Trump's illegal suspension today of all federal grants will completely devastate [institution] and every other college and university in the United States.

Been blocking a lot of really, really obnoxious leftists over the past few days. I've got no problem with civil and intellectually honest leftists, but I've also got no patience for nasty, sanctimonious little shits. MAGAts under a different label.

If you voted for Felon-47 -- or if you would have voted for Harris but couldn't be bothered to show up -- then the nightmare we're now three days into is YOUR fault. YOURS. YOU are directly responsible for this.

I don't have strong opinions about the TikTok ban. Both sides seem to have some valid points. But anyone who imagines they're striking a blow against government censorship by migrating to RedNote, a social media app controlled by the fucking *Communist Party of China*, is a brain-dead idiot.

Pete Hegseth is a dissembling, unqualified hack of rock-bottom intellectual and moral calibre. The Senators who vote to confirm him as Secretary of Defense bear direct personal responsibility for whatever national-security disasters occur on his watch.

People are jokingly referring to Elon Musk as President, but he's more like the General Secretary in a 20th century Communist country. Those countries had presidents etc, but the real power rested with the party leader, even if he held no formal government office.

Don't obey in advance -- and don't despair in advance. Donald Trump is weak and unintelligent, and his minions are arrogant, bumbling hacks. Most of his voters aren't hard MAGA and will turn on him fast when things go bad for them. Trumpism can be beaten -- but only if we continue to fight it.

Both of these things are true: America's health care industry is heartless, dysfunctional, and corrupt. We desperately need Medicare for all, or at least massive new regulation of the insurers. The murder of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was barbaric and evil, and celebrating it is abhorrent.

Whatever you may think of the Hunter Biden pardon -- and smart people I follow here are strongly disagreeing with each other about whether it was the right move -- the debate has brought a distressing number of abusive left-wing assholes out of the woodwork.

It should go without saying that abusive left-wing assholes are (a) far less of a collective threat to society today than abusive right-wing assholes and (b) a small minority among liberals/progressives in general, not at all representative. But they're still abusive assholes.

Starting another blocklist, this one for 2024 election denialists. Trump won. Fairly. And that sucks. Massively. But conspiracy-theorizing about missing votes etc. is just as dishonest and toxic coming from our side as from theirs. Those who descend to it do not belong in adult conversation.

"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it." Judge Learned Hand, 1944

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