Derrell Durrett

@derrelldurrett

Ex physics. Software. Life-long observer of the public morality. Devoté of Poe's Law. Potentially voluble. Boulder Colorado Born at 318 ppm CO2.

1.009 Folgt3.225 Follower13.462 Posts

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Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· 10d

Happy #ColoradoDay! It's Colorado's sesquicentennial!

A mountain goat looks at the camera on the top of Torrey's Peak in 1990.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· 25d

I'm not sure what is xenophobic here.

Since spring 2025, the Knox County Sheriff’s Office arrested more than a dozen suspects with alleged ties to Chinese organized crime who officials said were traveling across the country and using stolen credit card information to purchase gift cards and launder money.

In a review of cell phones seized in connection with the cases, investigators found the suspects were using special apps that contained the stolen credit card information but disguised them as games to evade detection.

“They look like anime games. They kind of look like Pokemon characters,” said Lawson, who’s been investigating the fraud ring. “We would just kind of start tapping on them … and we would find the ones that were the actual tap-to-pay apps.”

On a national level, Homeland Security Investigations’ Project Red Hook targets gift card fraud and other forms of digital retail crime. So far, it has led to at least 239 arrests since January 2024 and is targeting some of the largest Chinese organized crime groups operating in the U.S., HSI said.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· 29d

This kitty would like you to have a better day. (Though, to be clear, said cat has no interest in meeting you or any other human.)

A cat looks somewhere besides the camera.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Jul 7

Yo, @npr.org, if you're going to interview a Christian nationalist about how much he loves the Constitution and how he thinks it's a religiously inspired document, the least you can do is ask him why his vision is at odds with Art. VI, Sec. 3. www.npr.org/2026/07/06/n...

Text of Article VI is pictured. Section 3 reads:

3. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Jul 4

Noah on the sclerosis of thought permeating America that might well be its downfall. open.substack.com/pub/noahpini...

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And yet we’ve reached the stage where we can peer through the fog and see how this grand experiment might be heading toward its conclusion. Much of the country has eased into a comfortable equilibrium of sclerosis; local veto power either prevents the construction of factories, housing, energy, transportation, and other infrastructure, or delays it by decades, or raises the cost to multiples of what other rich countries pay. The past has become more valuable than the future to many Americans; they cling desperately to the power to enforce stasis, preserving a facade of the country they grew up in at the expense of the very dynamism that made that country great.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Jun 29

The mere existence, as anything other than a piece of speculative fiction, of the second graf of this piece from @joshtpm.bsky.social is the perfect distillation of our dystopian reality. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/anti-...

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Lets start by saying this is blatantly anti-constitutional, though of course it’s possible that the corrupt Supreme Court will allow it.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Jun 18

Art. VI of the United States Constitution would like a word.

Text from image:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Jun 17

As always, read @jamellebouie.net, here pointing out in terms a child can understand, that the counting of votes in an election is merely an accounting of the past, an opening of the box to see if the cat is alive or dead. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/17/o...

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Now, it is important to say that even as we use the language of motion to describe election results, the fact of the matter is that the outcome is set at the moment the polls close. Someone won; the job of election officials is to count the votes and say who that was. There is no “blue shift” or “red mirage.” Nothing changes when a candidate starts strong and then falls behind; that movement is nothing more than an artifact of the order in which ballots are counted.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Jun 15

I was instantly reminded of this.

A white flower with long frilly bits and absurdly long stamens.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Jun 13

Wishing you a delightful and restful #Caturday.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Jun 8

I was told GOPers objected to safe spaces. www.npr.org/2026/06/07/n...

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"I am deeply concerned about the situation in Toledo tonight," Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement. "Summer festivals should be safe spaces for families to spend time together without fear of violence."

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Jun 3

Equally obviously. It's this @mattbors.bsky.social cartoon come to life.

The famous Matt Bors cartoon (@mattbors.bsky.social).

Four-panel comic:

Panel 1: Woman looking at phone: My GAWD these Trump people are racist.
MAGA guy: That attitude is what's pushing me to be racist!

P2: W: Say what?
MG: Might as well! You say I'm a Nazi, so, fine, I'll be a Nazi if that makes you happy.

P3: W: It doesn't.
MG: I bought this Waffen SS uniform for Halloween. You'll cry "Offensive!" so maybe I'll just wear it every day.

P4: MG, shaving his head, getting a swastika tattoo: I just hate to do this.
I feel bullied, really.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Jun 1

OTOH, I give you today's good news from 270.

Two fledgling American robins just prior to leaving their nest.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· May 22

There's a robin nest on the back patio, and that must be why the cats are all worked up that time of day, since they're not allowed outside, furry murder machines that they are. (In fairness, I'm not convinced one of them would be a successful murderer.)

A very furry cat licks her front paw while curled on a futon.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Apr 29

Found this in the yard. Which leaves me wondering how the concept that a rabbit's foot is somehow lucky.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Apr 26

Find something, anything, in life you love as much as this cat loves the neighbor's shoes.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Apr 25

These two hope you have a very pleasant and clean #Caturday.

A very furry cat cleans herself lying on a couch.

A cat on a counter. His tongue is licking his nose.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Apr 22

This is as chill as this cat has ever been. It's taken over three years for her to be this chill.

A ragdoll cat looks slightly left to the camera as she lounges on a bed.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Apr 15

Sort of. It's on the segment of Iris west of 30th. It's easy to miss because it's been decaying ever since they left.

2880 Diagonal Hwy Boulder from satellite on Google maps.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Apr 7

Only recent nature photo. It's a cloud!

A weird lenticular cloud above a parched brown landscape.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Apr 2

I found this, too. But it's equally fact-free. Cite me those scholars, man. Because I'll bet most of us found them silly.

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For many years, a robust norm held in American politics: You could be in favor of legal immigration while still opposing illegal immigration. The two were fundamentally different, the thinking went, and supporting one while opposing the other was a coherent, mainstream position. That norm is now in danger of collapsing—under pressure not only from the right, but from left-leaning immigration advocates and scholars who have coalesced around the idea that all immigration restrictions are indefensible, abandoning the legal/illegal distinction in the process.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Apr 1

I would like to thank @pkrugman.bsky.social for giving coherent voice to my Zorn. After the stupidest thirty two days of the 435 days of this administration, I'm now I articulate. open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...

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How the hell did we manage to do this? I mean, the objective reality is that this was never going to be... Maybe it wasn’t even going to be doable. There were reasons why we didn’t go to war with Iran, particularly why we didn’t go to war in a way that basically became an existential threat for the regime so that they have no compunction about creating lots of damage because the alternative result is annihilation for them personally. But everybody who thought about it even for a couple of minutes, anyone who knew anything, particularly anyone who’d been paying attention to four years of war in Ukraine … we know something about what modern war looks like and about the inability of countries that have conventional superior forces to avoid major damage from drones and missiles. So this was completely, unbelievably stupid.

How did we get there? Well, there was a very good article by Tobin Harshaw in Bloomberg, and mostly I’m just riffing off what he wrote, but I think that it deserves wider circulation. He resurrected a book I had forgotten about, a 1976 book by Norman Dixon called The Psychology of Military Incompetence. It was very British oriented, but the lessons apply; Dixon looked at the great military disasters of British history.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Mar 25

These showers have one flow rate.

A sign outside a shower room in a public rec center which has a "shower emoji" above the text "Slow the flow/Save H2O" (except written like a chemist there at the end).

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Mar 18

A giant mobula.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Mar 18

Tried to add video above and failed. In the words of the Castillan dive guide, an "evil dolphin."

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Mar 18

Ooooh! Which boat? We were there in June '24, and other than freezing our butts off it was an amazing trip!

A plaque under water marking the location as the Archipelago de Revillagigedo as "bien natural de patrimonio mundial."

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Mar 13

Tanker crews to Trump: You first.

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Mr. Trump has displayed growing frustration over how the war is disrupting the oil supply, telling Fox News that oil tanker crews should “show some guts” and sail through the Strait of Hormuz.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Mar 4

@laloalcaraz.bsky.social helps us grasp the real intent of the war with Iran.

A Lalo Alcaraz cartoon depicting a patch for "Operation Epstein Fury" where many smart weapons are aimed at a box labeled "Epstein Files".

The Lalo touch is that the patch is basically head shaped and there's a red necktie where Donald Trump would wear it.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Feb 19

Hey!

A black cat named Nazgûl stares quizzically into the camera.

Derrell Durrett@derrelldurrett· Feb 14

@laloalcaraz.bsky.social gives us some perspective on how the plebes of ICE are reflecting on their redeployment.