Tom Swanson

@swansontea.bsky.social

309 Followers 124 Following

Retired clockmaker of the atomic persuasion. Formerly at the US Naval Observatory. About half of what I post isn’t serious. It’s up to you to figure out which half.

Cartoon by me, showing a half-full glass. Optimist: Glass half-full Pessimist: Glass half-empty Physicist: (equation for antisymmetric wave function showing superposition of full and empty states)
Arm wrestling meme. One arm is Exxon, the other is Taylor Farms. The common hands is labeled Catastrophic Spills
Poster for the movie Airplane!
Arm wrestling meme. One arm is “mis-spelling diarrhea” and the other arm is “actual diarrhea” The union of the two is “that came out wrong”
Dr. Jeffrey Pelt at his desk in the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October
wooden sculpture depicting the Haida culture's legend where a raven discovers the first humans inside a clamshell
Wooden window box with red/fuchsia, white and blue flowers in it.
Cartoon by me. A garden in a fenced area, with rows labeled sage, thyme, rosemary and dill. The rosemary row shows a mound, while the rest show something beginning to sprout
A respendently bald Vincent Price, holding an egg
I'm not running for office. But if I were, these are some of the lessons l'd take away from what happened in NY yesterday. 1. Authenticity is measurable. Voters can smell a focus group from a mile away. 2. Endorsements from the current Democratic leadership now read like warnings. The establishment wing of the party is no longer a sword. It's a question mark. 3. Conviction beats caution. The candidates who said hard things about rent, about who pays for what, about Gaza, they won. The triangulators lost. 4. Cost of living is everything. Everything else is wallpaper. 5. The middle is not a strategy. It's an empty room. Voters reached past the establishment to grab someone who actually believes something. 6. Don't fear the base. Court it. The Democrats who ran from their own voters lost. The ones who ran toward them won. 7. If you want to lead a party you have to be willing to fight inside it. Mamdani didn't ask permission. He took the field. The lesson under the lessons: the country is tired of being managed. People want to be led.
A child’s mobile with various fishes and a squid dangling from a yellow ring
Jan 17 at 8:32 AM Bartending is daycare, but at night for adults. Hear me out: -You give them sippy juice and snacks and supervise them while they play and practice their poor social skills. -Sometimes they're mean to the other kids so they lose sippy juice privileges and have to sit in time out (or get sent home early!). -They talk to you but they don't always make sense. You have to listen and nod anyways. -Cry unintelligibly for some reason sometimes? -Cleaning up vomit, pee and poop is also a thing sometimes. -Spills. Lots of spills. -"Look what I can do!" -Hopefully someone eventually comes to pick them up. Edit: I've been helpfully informed that daycare providers don't have to yell at kids for doing cocaine off the urinal, but it's pretty much the same as yelling at kids to not eat that dead bug they found behind the toilet, so my point stands.
In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade—which is 1 percent of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. An amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to ‘How much energy does it take to boil a room-temperature gallon of water?’ is ‘Go fuck yourself,’ because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities. — Josh Bazell, Wild Thing
Patch with globe logo that says CME on a white pinstriped jersey sleeve
A packet of silica gel that says desiccant, “do not eat” and throw away
A bunch of red-shirted crewmen from the original Star Trek
Pink (fuchsia, perhaps) poster at a bus stop in London with Elon in a tux with a schmucky smile on his face. Caption is: If you have a trillion dollars in a world where children are starving, you're not a visionary, you’re just a cunt
Map of Africa rotated counter-clockwise 90 degrees, making it look like a dinosaur head
A color depiction of Pepé le Pew, a cartoon skunk, who is black and white
Cartoon by me, showing patient who looks a little like a young George Lucas, lying on a couch and looking at an inkblot. The psychiatrist is sitting in a chair and saying, “No, that’s wrong. Guess again”
The Daily Mail Twitter account: "Karl Lagerfeld left $1.5million to his cat Choupette - so why is she now broke and living with the legendary fashion designer's former housekeeper?" including pictures of Karl holding the cat, and a solo shot of the cat
Natasha and Boris from the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoon
Girlfriend meme, showing “me” ogling “unpainted miniatures” while “half-finished miniatures” looks on in annoyance
Cartoon depicting three Star Trek crewmembers. One wears the ST insignia and holds a phaser. The other two are wearing shirts with bullseyes on them. One is looking down at his shirt. Caption: You men will have to wear these until we can issue you the standard red shirts
The MU/TH/UR computer, aka “Mother” from the movie Alien. A room with walls and ceiling covered with small white lights
Some tulips (yellow petals) prominently displaying their sex parts
Plastic beverage cup with red straw, emblazoned with Burger King logo
Fozzie Bear from The Muppet Show
From Starship Troopers. Man in long uniform coat with hand on large bug, where he says, “It’s afraid!”
Dan Aykroyd as Irwin Mainway, holding a package of broken glass labeled “Bag o’ Glass, Mainway Inc.”
Blue and green sign that says 78 Thyme Service
Julie Newmar as Catwoman from the 1960’s Batman TV show
Snow covered field with woods behind and to the side. A thin layer of fog/mist is in the woods, a meter or two off the ground, in a not at all creepy manner
Barney Collier from Mission: Impossible
Unpainted miniature of a cross-legged demon idol with gem-cut eyes holding a bowl in one hand on its lap, and a whip made of chain links in the other. Some half-finished miniatures are out of focus in the background
Four deer in the snow, feeding under a hanging bird feeder, with one chomping on the feeder tray
Two bird footprints in some snow, looking like the Greek letter psi, used to represent the wave function in quantum mechanics
Francis “Psycho” Soyer from Stripes, famous for saying, “All I know is I finally get to kill somebody”
Scotty, Spock, Kirk, McCoy, Uhura and Chekov (Sulu is missing) from Star Trek Scotty and Uhura are defying death by wearing red shirt uniforms
A picture of male hockey players, One, in a red jersey with a dark maple leaf, has an “A” on his upper left side.
Screenshot of a “just for you” coupon that shows a picture of a dog and cat, money off of “Any pet purchase”
Fire alarm Molly guard. Clear plexi, with “In case of fire lift cover activate fire alarm” on top and “Lift here” on the bottom.
Grey bird with white patches and a flat, orange bill feeding on bird seed in the snow
😜Picture of utz brand party size potato chips
A partly-shoveled deck with about 30 goldfinches on it, plus a fully populated hanging tube feeder and suet cages with a woodpecker on a rig attached to the railing.
Charles Addams cartoon in black and white. A clock shows 5:00. A receptionist standing behind a desk in the middle of powdering her nose has a surprised expression. Four tiny people carrying instruments are climbing down a rope ladder from a box on the wall labeled “Muzak”
The black spot on Jack Sparrow’s hand, from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies
Night view of horizon and sky showing patched of green northern lights
Statue of a hand with middle finger extended
IF YOU ARE USING UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS' TAX RECORDS TO FIND AND KIDNAP THEM, THEN IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THEM PAYING TAXES. IF YOU ARE SHOWING UP AT THEIR PLACE OF EMPLOYMENT, THEN IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THEM NOT WORKING. IF YOU ARE SHOWING UP AT COURTHOUSES, THEN IT WAS NEVER ABOUT GETTING THEM TO "DO IT THE RIGHT WAY". IF YOU ARE KIDNAPPING WOMEN AND CHILDREN, THEN IT WAS NEVER ABOUT CRIMINALS. IF YOU'RE REFUSING TO GIVE THEM DUE PROCESS, THEN IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THE CONSTITUTION. IF YOU'RE SPENDING BILLIONS TO DO THIS, THEN IT WAS NEVER ABOUT THE ECONOMY. AND IF YOU'RE DOING ALL THIS IN THE NAME OF A 34 TIME CONVICTED FELON, THEN IT WAS NEVER ABOUT FOLLOWING THE LAW
Francis Soyer from Stripes. Caption is “All I know is I finally get to invoke the insurrection act”
Cartoon by me. Man in a corridor looking at a door labeled “116 Microbiology” that has a tiny door at the bottom.
Cardboard box that’s a little mushed and mangled, almost like it was shoved into a mailbox that was a tad too small.
Dragon miniature with purple wings and green chest scales, sorta like Barney the dinosaur
Girlfriend meme, showing “me” ogling “unpainted miniatures” while “half-finished miniatures” looks on in annoyance
Marlon Brando, in a black tux, in a poster for The Godfather
Joe Pesci in his tux in My Cousin Vinny
Pope Leo XIV in full pope garb in the aisle of a full airplane holding a baseball bat and looking out towards a window seat or window
Girl scout scene from the Dodgeball movie, captioned “God damn you Bernice!”
The pope, holding a microphone, looking like he's crooning