weofodthignen

Posted by FmH

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/10/did-the-us-just-threaten-the-pope/

http://egelwan.wordpress.com/?p=55920

‘Most American Catholics were probably not expecting to spend the first week of Easter trying to figure out whether their government was threatening to overthrow the first American-born pope.

Yet a handful of news reports this week raised that very strange possibility. They landed just as both the Roman Catholic Church and right-wing Christian influencers have been ramping up their criticism of the Trump administration over the Iran war.

Key takeaways
A report from the Free Press this week blew up tensions on the right already escalating over the US-Israeli war on Iran.
It alleged that Pentagon officials met with a top Vatican diplomat to the US and raised the memory of a dark time in the Catholic Church’s history: when French rules exercised power over the Church and the pope.
There are now competing accounts of what actually happened in that meeting, and denials by the Trump administration and the Vatican.
These reports sparked furor among Catholics and religious conservatives — adding fuel to an ideological civil war threatening the American right, and offering another example of the rift between the Vatican and the US.
This burgeoning scandal hinges on news reports that in January, the previous ambassador of the Vatican to the United States was called into an unusual meeting with Department of Defense officials at the Pentagon and dressed down. The Pentagon officials, reportedly, wanted to complain about a speech Pope Leo XIV gave in Rome that appeared to criticize American foreign policy. During the meeting, one official issued what some in the church saw as a veiled threat to the Vatican: a warning that the US wields unlimited military power, and that the pope should be conscious of that.…’ (via Vox)

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/10/did-the-us-just-threaten-the-pope/

http://egelwan.wordpress.com/?p=55920

Posted by FmH

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/09/revisiting-trump-nicknames/

http://followmehere.com/?p=55913

In 2017 I posted this compendium of nicknames for Donald Trump, who has indubitably earned the right to undignified monikers. Revisiting that list, however, it is striking how few have endured.

To be durable, an epithet must be brief, phonetically sharp, and organized around a single, immediately legible idea. A small number show genuine staying power. “Don the Con” works through rhyme and semantic clarity. “Cheeto” and related “orange” variants persist through visual caricature and ease of recall. “Cadet Bone Spurs” remains effective because it encodes a specific narrative—Vietnam deferment—into a compact, repeatable phrase, one that that may be of increasing relevance as questions of military judgment proliferate. More recent constructions emphasizing retreat or inconsistency (“TACO”-type formulations, or “Trump always chickens out”) may gain traction for similar reasons. Of course, to ridicule his “chickening out” does a disservice to the damage he does before pulling out. By the way, this theme bears comparison, for those of you old enough to remember, to the Vietnam-era admonition that “Nixon should withdraw (something his father failed to do”).

Multiword, high-concept, or overly clever nicknames tend not to survive. They require interpretation rather than recognition, and therefore fail the test of immediate usability. Likewise, epithets that attempt to carry multiple payloads—corruption, narcissism, authoritarianism, racism, misogyny, or intellectual limitation—dilute their own impact. A viable nickname compresses to a single charge and delivers it without friction. Phonetic economy matters; so does repetition.

Recent media usage has favored morally indicting labels such as “Trump the Grifter” or “Loser Donald.” These benefit from clarity of accusation, though their longevity remains uncertain; many are tied to performance contexts (late-night monologue, commentary) rather than organic circulation. Also, as I argued in a recent post, illegality may be becoming less and less relevant under the Trump regime.

Broadly, derogatory nicknames can fall into a few categories: deflationary (diminishing stature), morally indicting (alleging wrongdoing), physically caricaturing, or narratively specific (encoding a particular episode or trait). The most successful examples combine compression, singularity of meaning, and repeatability, and then depend on amplification—circulation through high-frequency channels and social reinforcement.

Trump’s own nicknaming practice illustrates the same principle from the opposite direction. His derogatory monikers for his political enemies are pitifully uninventive but they are simple, repetitive, and deployed with discipline across attention-rich platforms, often inviting amplification by audience participation. Their effectiveness lies less in wit (a contradiction in terms when used in the same sentence as “Trump”) than in saturation.

If most nicknames fail to persist, the 2017 list remains of interest for a different reason: as a small archive of linguistic variation under selective pressure. It documents, in miniature, how political language evolves—what survives, what disappears, and why. One annotation of the original list is below, employing the following taxonomy:

• STUCK = still in circulation (only 3-5 of the originals)
• FRINGE = niche persistence (10-15 survivors)
• DATED = had a moment, now faded
• FAILED = never memetically viable

Canonical Survivors

• Don the Con → STUCK (clean rhyme; identity + accusation)
• Cheeto / Angry Cheeto / Big Cheeto → STUCK (visual, low-effort)
• The Donald → STUCK (neutralized) (legacy cultural inertia)
• Agent Orange → FRINGE (conceptual but persistent)
• Draft Dodger / Chickenhawk → FRINGE → evolved into “Bone Spurs”

Near-Miss Cluster (brief traction, now mostly faded)

• Drumpf → DATED (media-amplified spike, no endurance)
• Trumpster Fire / Trumptastrophe / Trumpocalypse → DATED (2017-era metaphors)
• Tiny Hands / Baby Fingers variants → DATED (debate-bound)
• Man-Baby → FRINGE (generic; not Trump-specific)
• Orange Man → FRINGE (mutated into meta-meme)

Orange / Food / Body Imagery Cluster

• Orange Bozo / Orange Clown / Orange Moron → FAILED (redundant insult)
• Orange Julius / Orange Manatee / Orange Messiah → FAILED (too whimsical)
• Tangerine Tornado / Tangerine Jesus → DATED (brief comedic cycle)
• Talking Yam / Sweet Potato / Butternut Squash → FAILED (novelty, no payload)
• Human Combover / Human Corncob → FRINGE (some descriptive stickiness)

Authoritarian / Hitler Analogies

• Mango Mussolini / Cinnamon Hitler / Hair Hitler → FAILED (too clever / overused frame)
• Hair Furor / Herr Trump / Der Trumpkopf → FAILED (linguistic friction)
• Fascist Carnival Barker → FAILED (multi-payload, editorial tone)
• King Trump / Emperor / Caligula variants → FAILED (too abstract)

Sexual / Vulgar Insults

• A$$hole / Dickhead / Fuckface → FAILED (non-specific)
• Pussy-related / Groper-in-Chief / Serial Feeler → FRINGE (context-bound)
• Two Pump Trump → FAILED (shock > reuse)
• Orange Anus / similar → FAILED (crude, non-differentiating)

“Donald + adjective” constructions

• Dangerous Donald / Dishonest Don → FAILED (too generic)
• Dainty Donald / Dingbat Donald → FAILED (low distinctiveness)
• Whiny Don / Crybaby Trump → FRINGE (some reuse, not dominant)
• Loosin’ Donald → DATED (campaign-specific)

Literary / High-Concept

• Trumpoleon / Trumplestiltskin / Trumpenstein → FAILED (requires decoding)
• The Predictable Endpoint of Republicanism → FAILED (essay, not nickname)
• Poster Child of American Decline → FAILED (editorial framing)
• Michelangelo of Ballyhoo → FAILED (clever, unusable)

Debate / Event-Specific

• Fruit of the Loom → DATED (single debate moment)
• Sniffles → DATED (single debate moment)
• Machado Meltdown → DATED (context-dependent)
• Orangeback Gorilla → DATED (debate staging reference)

Animal / Creature Metaphors

• Bozo / Sasquatch / Gorilla / Lizard-Man-Toddler → FAILED (too many competing images)
• Clown Prince of Politics → FRINGE (some descriptive clarity)
• Walking Punchline → FRINGE (broad but reusable)

Narcissism / Personality Framing

• Narcissistic Human Airhorn → FAILED (too long)
• Ego Maniac → FAILED (generic)
• Sociopathic Toddler / 70-Year-Old Toddler → FRINGE (some persistence)
• Fragile Soul → FAILED (low salience)

War / Power / Leadership Framing

• Commander-in-Grief / Frisker-in-Chief → FAILED (over-clever pattern)
• Conspiracy Commander-in-Chief → FAILED (too long)
• God-Emperor Trump → FRINGE (ironic subculture)
• King of Debt / King of Spin → FAILED (non-unique)

Anagrams / Wordplay

• Lord Dampnut / Tan Dump Lord → FAILED (requires decoding)
• Darth taxeVader → FAILED (too clever, low clarity)
• Boldfinger → FAILED (weak mapping)

Misc. Notables

• Teflon Don → FRINGE (borrowed, occasionally reused)
• Snake Oil Salesman → FRINGE (clear but generic)
• World’s Greatest Troll → FRINGE (descriptive, not sticky)
• Walking Talking Human Combover → FAILED (too long)
• Xenophobic Sweet Potato → FAILED (novelty only)

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with the “failed” characterizations? Do you have derogatory ways of referring to this menacing buffoon that were not mentioned, whether you are otherwise too polite to use them in print? Or do you hear the echo of the jackboots clearly enough that you don’t even want to commit yourself on the record?

And do you find other ways to express, and relieve yourself of, the experience of constant gut-cloying derision and ridicule of living under the Trump regime? Some would emphasize focusing on the behavior, not the persona (does it get to Trump more?); using plain language rather than the clever, flowery turn of phrase; using humor only sparingly and precisely (some would say that ridicule is adjacent to dismissal, and that this menace cannot simply be dismissed); and turning diffuse alarm, irritation, despair, and existential dread into something more durable and effective by channeling the energy into writing, teaching, or civic engagement.

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/09/revisiting-trump-nicknames/

http://followmehere.com/?p=55913

Posted by FmH

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/08/an-international-mega-analysis-of-psychedelic-drug-effects-on-brain-circuit-function/

http://egelwan.wordpress.com/?p=55907

This landmark meta-analysis proposes a convergent account of psychedelic effects that synthesizes pharmacological, neuroimaging, and phenomenological findings. Examining DMT, LSD, and psilocybin, the authors identify both shared mechanisms and meaningful differences in their effects on brain function. LSD appears especially prominent in what they describe as “visionary restructuralisation,” a finding that correlates with enhanced connectivity between the visual network and the rest of the brain. DMT, by contrast, shows particularly strong effects on transmodal networks, which integrate higher-order brain regions involved in complex information processing. Psilocybin appears broadly similar in mechanism but differs somewhat in the relative weighting of its effects across brain networks.

Across psychedelics, the altered state is associated with increased crosstalk among brain subsystems that ordinarily operate in a more segregated fashion. This desegregation may help explain ego dissolution, as the default mode network, which helps sustain the ordinary sense of a bounded and cohesive self, becomes less dominant and less internally coherent. Importantly, these effects appear nonlinear: relatively small changes at the receptor level can produce large and difficult-to-predict changes in whole-brain connectivity.

For clinical psychiatry, this framework offers one possible way to understand the recent interest in the rapid antidepressant effects of psychedelics. These effects may partly relate to increased connectivity involving the frontoparietal network, which supports cognitive flexibility and is often functionally constrained in severe depression. By transiently disrupting rigid, overlearned patterns of brain organization, psychedelics may create conditions in which new modes of communication and adaptation become possible. In a patient with treatment-resistant depression, this can be thought of, cautiously, as a kind of forced reboot of the brain’s operating system. (via Nature Medicine)

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/08/an-international-mega-analysis-of-psychedelic-drug-effects-on-brain-circuit-function/

http://egelwan.wordpress.com/?p=55907

Posted by FmH

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/08/once-again-israel-ignores-ceasefire-part-of-ceasefire/

http://egelwan.wordpress.com/?p=55902

‘This is not even the first time in 2026 that Israel has decided a negotiated ceasefire means “fire at will.”…’ (via Boing Boing)

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/08/once-again-israel-ignores-ceasefire-part-of-ceasefire/

http://egelwan.wordpress.com/?p=55902

Posted by FmH

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/08/did-the-apocalyptic-moment-happen/

http://followmehere.com/?p=55900

Trump spent April 7th threatening Iran with apocalyptic rhetoric at dawn — including thinly veiled hints at genocide and the possible deployment of nuclear weapons — then by evening, TACO-flavored, declared a two-week ceasefire, claiming complete military success and an imminent peace deal.

Pakistan brokered the off-ramp.

But Iran’s media simultaneously claimed they won — that the U.S. agreed in principle to their 10-point plan demanding sanctions relief, removal of U.S. forces from the region, and Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz. If accurate, the U.S. ends up materially worse off than before the war began. Trump responded by threatening CNN for reporting it.

The day’s arc, in miniature: genocidal bluster → ceasefire → “Golden Age of the Middle East!!!”

Heather Cox Richardson’s indictment, among others, is structural, not merely temperamental. The war was never congressionally authorized, cost thousands of lives (including hundreds of children), depleted munitions, damaged U.S. bases and embassies, cratered global oil markets, and strengthened Putin — all to reopen a strait that was open before Trump provoked the conflict. Ben Rhodes called it catastrophic even under the most charitable interpretation.

Richardson’s closing note is the most chilling: Trump’s “a whole civilization will die tonight” wasn’t only a threat to Iran. Richardson reads it as an inadvertent epitaph for American legitimacy itself — the republic’s moral standing as collateral damage in one man’s need to escape the consequences of his own impulsivity.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/08/did-the-apocalyptic-moment-happen/

http://followmehere.com/?p=55900

Posted by FmH

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/07/unprecedented-observation-reveals-2-supermassive-black-holes-locked-in-a-tight-death-spiral/

http://egelwan.wordpress.com/?p=55896

‘New research describes an unexpected double jet in a distant galaxy, revealing a pair of supermassive black holes on the verge of colliding.…’ (via Gizmodo)

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/07/unprecedented-observation-reveals-2-supermassive-black-holes-locked-in-a-tight-death-spiral/

http://egelwan.wordpress.com/?p=55896

Posted by FmH

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/05/paul-krugman-america-as-we-knew-it-may-end-tuesday/

http://egelwan.wordpress.com/?p=55894

‘If Trump is actually going to give the order for massive war crimes, for destruction of civilian infrastructure, power plants, bridges, which will, among other things, lead to a lot of deaths in Iran, will the military obey it? A year ago, I would have said no.

But what we do know now is that, first of all, there turns out to be at least a significant MAGA component inside the officer corps. And we know that Pete Hexeth has been systematically corrupting, dismantling the military over the past 14 months. Generals who raise ethical concerns have been fired. Officers who even just want to be intelligent about warfare. and not believe that it’s all about warrior ethos and lethality have been fired, so it’s quite possible that there’s a quorum of officers who will follow instructions to commit war crimes.

You can get even more pessimistic. Tim Snyder has been arguing that we’re basically in preparation for a coup, that somehow or other the war will be a pretense and arguing that this insane expansion of military spending in the latest Trump budget is a bribe to the military.

I hope he’s wrong. But in any case, my God, if Trump gets his way, and if he doesn’t chicken out —and I think TACO is greatly overrated, I think all too often Trump actually does follow through on his insane stuff.

It’s entirely possible that basically by this time Tuesday, America will have established itself as one of the world’s great villains. I don’t want to be here, but, you know, be warned. This is happening. This is real.

It’s the most astonishing, awful thing that I’ve ever seen, and we’ve all seen a lot of awful things. Take care, I guess.…’ (via Paul Krugman)

https://followmehere.com/2026/04/05/paul-krugman-america-as-we-knew-it-may-end-tuesday/

http://egelwan.wordpress.com/?p=55894