Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

You are authorized to tell us what you think. Not just on this topic, but any other.

Have you considered whether every cop might be a criminal and all sinners saints?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

OK, and my argument is that the government never had "control" in any sense of a smaller media.

Gurri's proofs suggest you're not correct there. He cites numerous examples of the Big Three and newspapers agreeing to refrain from printing certain stories/criticisms of the govt in the 50s and early 60s. This all changed in the 70s.

Government failures on important issues are not easily bullshitted away. See, e.g., Vietnam or the Great Depression. It's not like people were stupid and then the internet came along.

The Internet came along and people are still quite stupid. Possibly more so. When the Big Three maintained standards, certain narratives were encouraged and others not. Cronkite was considered a rebel for stating what everyone suspected on Vietnam.

Do they? Is the problem that the public expects too much from the government, or is the problem that hard problems are hard to solve?

Gurri argues that govt lies about its power to keep its power. It proclaims it can fix everything because a credulous and demanding public insists it do so. Carter, Bush I and II, and Obama told the truth about the economy being beyond govt control. They've since been savaged as cautious enablers of a bad status quo.

Trump and Reagan both promised everybody a pony. Trump remains a beloved demagogue to his Montagnard army of lunatics (26% of voters). Reagan's practically sainted. Neither fixed anything.

Bringing back jobs is hard. They went somewhere else for a reason.

Bush II said this once. So did McCain. They didn't say it twice.

Fixing inequality and poverty is hard. A lot of people like inequality.

How does one fix it? Green New Deal? Nope. Redistribution? Nope... and why bother with redistribution when you have MMT. If MMT works, just create a UBI and let's be done with it.

This is a nice story, but have you considered an alternative explanation? Some voters like change, and will vote for the opposition. Some voters always vote for the same party, but they are more energized to vote against the opposition than to vote for their own party, so they turn out more when the other party is in power. Both of those are real phenomena that explain why elections go back and forth.

Gurri calls this the politics of negation. He sees it on both sides and he sees it as the primary driver of modern politics. Nobody has any ideas. A low information public, tribalized into warring factions, just want to burn down the other side.

Also, your "every four years" point needs some thought. Presidents who run for re-election usually get re-elected. Trump was an exception, because he was so terrible, but before him you have to go back to 1992 and George H.W. Bush. And I would wager that Obama would have beat Trump in 2016, if he hadn't been term-limited.

I suspected this would be the response. Correct my earlier statement to "every two years."

What does go back and forth is Congress. Part of that is that off-year elections favor Republicans, because a lot of people turn out to vote only in presidential elections, and they skew Democratic. But that's another feature explaining flip-flop results that has nothing to do with your guy's theory.

Except in 2018 the Democrats turned out and whacked Trump.

Is it a newsflash that politicians oversell? Is this not a feature of most advertising? Do people lose faith in companies and consumer goods because the products they buy have been oversold?

No. But Gurri's point is that this cycle of overselling creates a terminally cynical, reactive, and tribal "public." And where his point is most interesting is that he doesn't blame politicians as much as he does the public. He posits that the public forces them to lie about their abilities more and more outrageously and becomes more and more angry when the lies are discovered after the politicians have failed to deliver that which was promised. The delta between what is demanded and what is delivered grows wider. This seems proven by the chasm between what Biden is going to get passed and what the unrealistic progressives in his party demand. It is also proven by the insanity of Trump's "I'll bring back the jobs" pitch and subsequent failure to do so.

That's an excellent idea. Let's elect a new public.

Gurri pretty much argues exactly that point. We are not in decay solely because the institutions are in decay, as pundits often assert. We're in decay because our public is overly populated with unrealistic people, our institutions are run by a mix of opportunists and incompetent "elites" who are anything but, and the system is figure-headed by scared politicians who'll offer whatever lie gets them re-elected.

At the risk of outing myself (ha), I have taken a class from Sandel. He's smart. But is the problem "merit"? If you think for a second about what you say about, the problem is not "merit," it's that the upper middle class (etc.) have real advantages because they have more money.

He acknowledges this is part of the problem.

The issue is not a Harvard degree is an arbitrary metric, the issue is that a Harvard degree tends to signal some measure of qualification, Jared Kushner aside. (Is it a perfect measure of merit? Of course not. But nothing is.)

His point is deeper. He argues that merit as a measure breeds anger and resentment as manifest in out politics today. In British class structures, one could blame failure on lack of luck in birth. Lack of luck in birth is still a huge part of failure here, but instead of admitting that, our "merit" system blames the unlucky for their own failings. Sandel argues this is terrible for social cohesion and allows upper middle class people to duck the argument that much of what one achieves or fails to achieve is dependent on luck.

If you doubt that merit is being used to avoid that conversation, next time you're sitting with a professional who enjoyed an upper middle class upbringing, suggest to him that luck of daddy paying for his education and helping him with connections is largely responsible for his success. Oh my will you get a face full of angry bullshit in response.

Everyone pays lip service to merit, but there are an awful lot of policies out there that undercut it, like funding public education locally, which ensures that people who live in expensive neighborhoods don't have to share their schools. The problem is not merit, it's an insufficient commitment to it.

Sandel addresses that as well. He imagines a world of true merit. (This is near impossible, he notes, because much of merit is just doing well on standardized tests at the right times in life, which is a poor measure of who is deserving of anything in his estimation. [It's also gamed by the affluent via tutors.]) He sees that world as the worst of dystopias. Those lucky enough to be born with the right talents for the time would get the spoils and those who were unlucky would be unequivocally entirely responsible for their own failures.

Sandel sees no difference between being born lucky in terms of intelligence and being born lucky in terms of money. Both as he sees it are things over which one has no control. I think his argument is weak there because I think raw intelligence is cultivated to useful and marketable intelligence, and he doesn't seem to address that. But regardless, the book provides, like most of his work, some fascinating considerations.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

For Sebby.

I actually don't disagree with much there. Sullivan is cashing in on a narrative and is sloppy in his cherry-picking of supporting proofs.

But then this author goes on his own cherry-picking expedition, and his selections are cultivated carefully to undo Sullivan's point.

This tennis match of "You're Biased" vs. "No We're Not" could go on endlessly. But I think that tedium could be short-circuited with an easier analysis explaining why the "MSM" is assailed for alleged bias:

Because the "MSM" is read by those who like and those who hate it. And its right-wing competition is not read by anyone (sane).

Do you read the right wing papers? I don't. Other than the National Review, they're just not well written. They're rags. And do you watch OANN? No. No one sane watches OANN.

The Big Three and large cable news outlets (sans Fox), and the Times and similar papers lean left. They admit it. But as the author notes, they also include some right wing voices. But those right wing voices are never the marquis names (Douthat and Bret Stephens aren't massive draws).

The haters need something to hate, they go looking for articles to hate, and they find stuff by people like Krugman or Charles Blow (just to stick with papers) because those articles are the most cited. In the case of Krugman and similar writers, it's because he's a well known brand. His stuff gets widely aggregated and circulated. In the case of people like Blow, it's because they're somewhat mentally unhinged, and so provide a perfect foil for the right (look at what this nutball wrote).

The centrist and right wing voices in the "MSM" universe don't get top billing. In fact, they're billed so low by the algorithms that share articles they often might as well not even exist. And no one with any common sense reads the right wing papers because they're nuts.

So it appears to most people that the "MSM" leans hard left, and the right runs with this argument.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Gurri's proofs suggest you're not correct there. He cites numerous examples of the Big Three and newspapers agreeing to refrain from printing certain stories/criticisms of the govt in the 50s and early 60s. This all changed in the 70s.

That's not "control," and there are certainly more recent examples.

The Internet came along and people are still quite stupid. Possibly more so. When the Big Three maintained standards, certain narratives were encouraged and others not. Cronkite was considered a rebel for stating what everyone suspected on Vietnam.

OK, but so what. The government trying to bullshit away failure in Vietnam is not the same as the government successfully bullshitting away failure in Vietnam. One happened and the other didn't.

Gurri argues that govt lies about its power to keep its power. It proclaims it can fix everything because a credulous and demanding public insists it do so. Carter, Bush I and II, and Obama told the truth about the economy being beyond govt control. They've since been savaged as cautious enablers of a bad status quo.

Trump and Reagan both promised everybody a pony. Trump remains a beloved demagogue to his Montagnard army of lunatics (26% of voters). Reagan's practically sainted. Neither fixed anything.

Bush II said this once. So did McCain. They didn't say it twice.

OK.

How does one fix it? Green New Deal? Nope. Redistribution? Nope... and why bother with redistribution when you have MMT. If MMT works, just create a UBI and let's be done with it.

OK. My point was that getting any of these things done is hard, and you don't seem to disagree.

Gurri calls this the politics of negation. He sees it on both sides and he sees it as the primary driver of modern politics. Nobody has any ideas. A low information public, tribalized into warring factions, just want to burn down the other side.

You said, Gurri says x.
I said, but what about y? If y is true, then that's a different explanation for x.
So you say, Gurri says y.

I take it that you want me to agree that Gurri is brilliant, whatever he says. Got it. Gurri is brilliant. He seems to have figured it all out.

I suspected this would be the response. Correct my earlier statement to "every two years."

OK.

Except in 2018 the Democrats turned out and whacked Trump.

Yes. Off elections favor Republicans relative to presidential elections, *and* Trump was such a train wreck that Democrats turned out strongly in 2018. Both can be true!

No. But Gurri's point is that this cycle of overselling creates a terminally cynical, reactive, and tribal "public." And where his point is most interesting is that he doesn't blame politicians as much as he does the public. He posits that the public forces them to lie about their abilities more and more outrageously and becomes more and more angry when the lies are discovered after the politicians have failed to deliver that which was promised. The delta between what is demanded and what is delivered grows wider. This seems proven by the chasm between what Biden is going to get passed and what the unrealistic progressives in his party demand. It is also proven by the insanity of Trump's "I'll bring back the jobs" pitch and subsequent failure to do so.

No, it's not proven by it. You are not distinguishing between causation and correlation.

Gurri pretty much argues exactly that point. We are not in decay solely because the institutions are in decay, as pundits often assert. We're in decay because our public is overly populated with unrealistic people, our institutions are run by a mix of opportunists and incompetent "elites" who are anything but, and the system is figure-headed by scared politicians who'll offer whatever lie gets them re-elected.

Why do we think things are fundamentally different from any other time in history? I don't think the public is more stupid or politicians more prone to overpromise, so I think you need to look elsewhere for an explanation. That is my fundamental response to Gurri. Not sure you are hearing me.

His point is deeper. He argues that merit as a measure breeds anger and resentment as manifest in out politics today. In British class structures, one could blame failure on lack of luck in birth. Lack of luck in birth is still a huge part of failure here, but instead of admitting that, our "merit" system blames the unlucky for their own failings. Sandel argues this is terrible for social cohesion and allows upper middle class people to duck the argument that much of what one achieves or fails to achieve is dependent on luck.

If you doubt that merit is being used to avoid that conversation, next time you're sitting with a professional who enjoyed an upper middle class upbringing, suggest to him that luck of daddy paying for his education and helping him with connections is largely responsible for his success. Oh my will you get a face full of angry bullshit in response.

I really don't think it's all that different from the response you would have gotten if you had suggested the same about class in the UK a hundred years ago. There is structural inequality that benefits the people with money, they like it that way, and it's important for them to believe that there's a moral justification for it. Lots of people want to hear that, and they are the people that advertisers want to sell to, so we have media that reinforces what they believe. It's hegemonic, dude.

Sandel addresses that as well. He imagines a world of true merit. (This is near impossible, he notes, because much of merit is just doing well on standardized tests at the right times in life, which is a poor measure of who is deserving of anything in his estimation. [It's also gamed by the affluent via tutors.]) He sees that world as the worst of dystopias. Those lucky enough to be born with the right talents for the time would get the spoils and those who were unlucky would be unequivocally entirely responsible for their own failures.

Sandel sees no difference between being born lucky in terms of intelligence and being born lucky in terms of money. Both as he sees it are things over which one has no control. I think his argument is weak there because I think raw intelligence is cultivated to useful and marketable intelligence, and he doesn't seem to address that. But regardless, the book provides, like most of his work, some fascinating considerations.

It may surprise you to hear that there are other moral philosophers who are a part of this same conversation. Sandel's former Harvard colleague, John Rawls, constructed A Theory Of Justice to address this problem of the inequality of the initial distribution of resources. Sandel has taught Rawls in his classes!

Just to give you a sneak preview before you go and wrestle with A Theory Of Justice, which is pretty turgid, the basic idea is that if you were to ask people what kind of society they would want to live in and they were ignorant about the sort of lot they would be born to, they would want to be in a society with some protections for everyone -- maybe healthcare, and a minimum income, etc. You can quibble about the details, but that's the gist. In other words, some redistribution of resources to ensure that the worst-off among us aren't that badly off.

In other words, the sort of thing the Democratic Party tends to advocate for, and the Republican Party tends to oppose.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I actually don't disagree with much there. Sullivan is cashing in on a narrative and is sloppy in his cherry-picking of supporting proofs.

But then this author goes on his own cherry-picking expedition, and his selections are cultivated carefully to undo Sullivan's point.

This tennis match of "You're Biased" vs. "No We're Not" could go on endlessly. But I think that tedium could be short-circuited with an easier analysis explaining why the "MSM" is assailed for alleged bias:

Because the "MSM" is read by those who like and those who hate it. And its right-wing competition is not read by anyone (sane).

Do you read the right wing papers? I don't. Other than the National Review, they're just not well written. They're rags. And do you watch OANN? No. No one sane watches OANN.

The Big Three and large cable news outlets (sans Fox), and the Times and similar papers lean left. They admit it. But as the author notes, they also include some right wing voices. But those right wing voices are never the marquis names (Douthat and Bret Stephens aren't massive draws).

The haters need something to hate, they go looking for articles to hate, and they find stuff by people like Krugman or Charles Blow (just to stick with papers) because those articles are the most cited. In the case of Krugman and similar writers, it's because he's a well known brand. His stuff gets widely aggregated and circulated. In the case of people like Blow, it's because they're somewhat mentally unhinged, and so provide a perfect foil for the right (look at what this nutball wrote).

The centrist and right wing voices in the "MSM" universe don't get top billing. In fact, they're billed so low by the algorithms that share articles they often might as well not even exist. And no one with any common sense reads the right wing papers because they're nuts.

So it appears to most people that the "MSM" leans hard left, and the right runs with this argument.

I think you skillfully explain why conservatives (whom you mislabel as "most people") constantly complain about the so-called "MSM." I don't disagree. My point was that a lot of those complaints are tendentious bullshit fueled by grievance and an ideological agenda, and you don't seem to disagree.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

That's not "control," and there are certainly more recent examples.

It's a level of control many multiples that of which exists today.

OK, but so what. The government trying to bullshit away failure in Vietnam is not the same as the government successfully bullshitting away failure in Vietnam. One happened and the other didn't.

The point is Cronkite broke ranks when he criticized the war. It took many years before he did so. Today, the criticisms of such a war would emerge before it even started. The govt's hands are tied from the start.

OK. My point was that getting any of these things done is hard, and you don't seem to disagree.

I don't. I also don't think it refutes the assertion that the govt cannot fix everything, or that people should not expect it to fix everything. That certain fixes would be difficult and probably or likely impossible are not mutually exclusive points. Gurri isn't saying don't try. He's advocating pragmatic acceptance of reality: There are many big problems the govt cannot fix -- many more than the govt or the demanding "public" likes to admit.

You said, Gurri says x.
I said, but what about y? If y is true, then that's a different explanation for x.
So you say, Gurri says y.

I take it that you want me to agree that Gurri is brilliant, whatever he says. Got it. Gurri is brilliant. He seems to have figured it all out.

I say Gurri says X. You say what about Y? I say Gurri addresses Y also. You then say Y and X are mutually exclusive. They aren't.

Yes. Off elections favor Republicans relative to presidential elections, *and* Trump was such a train wreck that Democrats turned out strongly in 2018. Both can be true!

Agreed.

No, it's not proven by it. You are not distinguishing between causation and correlation.

I'm saying the public's unrealistic expectations are a cause of govt lying and further cynicism and erosion of authority deriving from those lies. Are you suggesting the govt lies for a reason other than to satisfy or deceive the public? If so, I'd ask, why? What would that risk potentially gain for the govt? The main reason the govt lies is to stay in power. To stay in power it must stay in good relations with the public that votes for it.

Why do we think things are fundamentally different from any other time in history? I don't think the public is more stupid or politicians more prone to overpromise, so I think you need to look elsewhere for an explanation. That is my fundamental response to Gurri. Not sure you are hearing me.

I hear you. My response to that has been offered, but I'll offer it once more. This time is different because the internet is ubiquitous, decentralized, and controlled by the public to an extent no previous medium has been previously. The printing pres, radio, and TV are not credibly analogous.

This has sped up the "spin" processes of the past such that the spin is junk. Anyone can see thru it in an instant. It took years and years of degradation of talent within institutional management/govt to expose that the power structures within a society were decayed and incompetent. Today that happens almost daily. Govt says X and within 20 minutes an analyst has dismantled X and shown its flaws. Case in point -- Biden's BBB. The deltas between Administration-projected and realistically objectively expected revenues to pay for the bill were available everywhere, with supporting formulae, within days of the announcement of its specifics.

Same with Trump's tax cuts. Its delivery of outsized benefits to the wealthy and r/e investors were on the front page of most media outlets days after its initial sketches were out.

The emperor's closet is empty before he could even hope to put on clothes.

I really don't think it's all that different from the response you would have gotten if you had suggested the same about class in the UK a hundred years ago. There is structural inequality that benefits the people with money, they like it that way, and it's important for them to believe that there's a moral justification for it. Lots of people want to hear that, and they are the people that advertisers want to sell to, so we have media that reinforces what they believe. It's hegemonic, dude.

I agree with all of this. The important note Sandel adds is that one hundred years ago the losers could say they were part of a rigged system because class was still considered as important as merit. Now, he suggests, the losers can't point to systemic inequities as much because merit is viewed as the sole measuring stick.

It may surprise you to hear that there are other moral philosophers who are a part of this same conversation. Sandel's former Harvard colleague, John Rawls, constructed A Theory Of Justice to address this problem of the inequality of the initial distribution of resources. Sandel has taught Rawls in his classes!

Indeed! I am flabbergasted. Your pointing to other sources of moral philosophy has Blown My Mind.

Just to give you a sneak preview before you go and wrestle with A Theory Of Justice, which is pretty turgid, the basic idea is that if you were to ask people what kind of society they would want to live in and they were ignorant about the sort of lot they would be born to, they would want to be in a society with some protections for everyone -- maybe healthcare, and a minimum income, etc. You can quibble about the details, but that's the gist. In other words, some redistribution of resources to ensure that the worst-off among us aren't that badly off.

Rawls was taught in my high school. We had a socialist (self-described) history/intl relations teacher who gave a helicopter view of every source of social justice policies he could summon. (He ran into some issues with the board over some strong anti-Reagan lessons.)

In other words, the sort of thing the Democratic Party tends to advocate for, and the Republican Party tends to oppose.

And thus we come back to the least creative fixation: Ignoring Gurri's point which is broader than politics and instead suggesting, absurdly:

If only the Democrats had total control, they'd could fix it all, or at least most of it.

Wrong. They'd at best fix it at the margins. That's Gurri's point.

Is that a little bit better? Of course. Is it what the "public" wants? Is it the fix the portion of our society chaffing under inequality desires or thinks the govt can provide? Not Even Close.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

It's a level of control many multiples that of which exists today.

No, it's not control at all.

If you want to go for a walk on the beach, and your wife also wants to go for a walk on the beach, and you then go for a walk on the beach, you don't "control" her. If you're still unclear on how that works, I suggested you discuss it with her. You don't need to control her, because you have found something better, a happy situation where your wishes are aligned.

The point is Cronkite broke ranks when he criticized the war. It took many years before he did so. Today, the criticisms of such a war would emerge before it even started. The govt's hands are tied from the start.

There actually were criticisms of the war before Cronkite, and I think you are overestimating the extent to which our current government's hands are tied because people criticize it on the internet. Maybe Gurri has a strong argument here and you are just not quite succeeding in recapitulating it. I certainly think something has changed in the country since Vietnam, but I don't think you have your finger on it.

That certain fixes would be difficult and probably or likely impossible are not mutually exclusive points. Gurri isn't saying don't try. He's advocating pragmatic acceptance of reality: There are many big problems the govt cannot fix -- many more than the govt or the demanding "public" likes to admit.

OK.

I say Gurri says X. You say what about Y? I say Gurri addresses Y also. You then say Y and X are mutually exclusive. They aren't.

Your argument that back-and-forth election results are caused by a bunch of voters who yo-you between politicians who promise them the moon is undercut if there are other, better ways to explain back-and-forth election results.

I'm saying the public's unrealistic expectations are a cause of govt lying and further cynicism and erosion of authority deriving from those lies. Are you suggesting the govt lies for a reason other than to satisfy or deceive the public? If so, I'd ask, why? What would that risk potentially gain for the govt? The main reason the govt lies is to stay in power. To stay in power it must stay in good relations with the public that votes for it.

First, you are obfuscating the difference between the government and politicians. Politicians promise the moon to get elected. Has that not always been the case? The rest of the government doesn't lie to get elected.

It seems like you have just discovered that politicians say what people want to hear to get elected. Where have you been?

This time is different because the internet is ubiquitous, decentralized, and controlled by the public to an extent no previous medium has been previously. The printing pres, radio, and TV are not credibly analogous.

This has sped up the "spin" processes of the past such that the spin is junk. Anyone can see thru it in an instant. It took years and years of degradation of talent within institutional management/govt to expose that the power structures within a society were decayed and incompetent. Today that happens almost daily. Govt says X and within 20 minutes an analyst has dismantled X and shown its flaws. Case in point -- Biden's BBB. The deltas between Administration-projected and realistically objectively expected revenues to pay for the bill were available everywhere, with supporting formulae, within days of the announcement of its specifics.

Same with Trump's tax cuts. Its delivery of outsized benefits to the wealthy and r/e investors were on the front page of most media outlets days after its initial sketches were out.

The emperor's closet is empty before he could even hope to put on clothes.

Yes, the internet has changed the news. There is more information, good and bad, available to everyone. But what's the argument about how that has changed things? Trump got his tax cuts passed. Biden is struggling to get his agenda through because his legislative majorities are so incredibly narrow. (With all of the information on the internet, none of it seems to explain whatever Machin and Synema are doing.)

I agree with all of this. The important note Sandel adds is that one hundred years ago the losers could say they were part of a rigged system because class was still considered as important as merit. Now, he suggests, the losers can't point to systemic inequities as much because merit is viewed as the sole measuring stick.

Sure they can. See above, where you said there's all sorts of information available on the internet.

Indeed! I am flabbergasted. Your pointing to other sources of moral philosophy has Blown My Mind.

You're welcome.

Rawls was taught in my high school.

OK.

And thus we come back to the least creative fixation: Ignoring Gurri's point which is broader than politics and instead suggesting, absurdly:

If only the Democrats had total control, they'd could fix it all, or at least most of it.

Wrong. They'd at best fix it at the margins. That's Gurri's point.

Is that a little bit better? Of course. Is it what the "public" wants? Is it the fix the portion of our society chaffing under inequality desires or thinks the govt can provide? Not Even Close.

I'm OK with fixing things on the margins, and I think a lot of the public is, too. I'm not sure why you think the public (or the "public") has impossibly high expectations.

It seems to me that we have a political system that makes it very hard to get anything done legislatively. The bigger problem is not that the public expects too much, it's that it gets too little.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

No, it's not control at all.

you do know we all see you as the “government” here deleting posts about 9/11 or Beslan? How can you say the government can’t control when you have proven it can?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

you do know we all see you as the “government” here deleting posts about 9/11 or Beslan? How can you say the government can’t control when you have proven it can?

Please send your tax dollars to me.

[Hank Chinaski]

Mass shooting at a High School not far from me. Unbelievable.

Update: 3 dead kids.


My cousin’s grandchild was in the school. The child’s mother shared texts.

The most striking thing is there is no shock. Just “oh this is happening now.” There should be shock. But of course there isn’t. Just the opposite reaction to winning the lottery.

And the local news makes the point that they do train kids what to do, but the eventual shooters are there for the training.

As my dad would say, it’s all maroush.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Mass shooting at a High School not far from me. Unbelievable.

Update: 3 dead kids.


My cousin’s grandchild was in the school. The child’s mother shared texts.

The most striking thing is there is no shock. Just “oh this is happening now.” There should be shock. But of course there isn’t. Just the opposite reaction to winning the lottery.

And the local news makes the point that they do train kids what to do, but the eventual shooters are there for the training.

As my dad would say, it’s all maroush.

That's scary. How did we get here?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Adder

That's scary. How did we get here?

The British threatened to take guns away from militias?

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Mass shooting at a High School not far from me. Unbelievable.

Update: 3 dead kids.


My cousin’s grandchild was in the school. The child’s mother shared texts.

The most striking thing is there is no shock. Just “oh this is happening now.” There should be shock. But of course there isn’t. Just the opposite reaction to winning the lottery.

And the local news makes the point that they do train kids what to do, but the eventual shooters are there for the training.

As my dad would say, it’s all maroush.

We are in the tailspin of america.

[Replaced_Texan]

Again, a hearty fuck you to anyone who said, "they'll never overturn Roe."

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

Again, a hearty fuck you to anyone who said, "they'll never overturn Roe."

I never said that. I will say I don't look at Judge's questions as signaling a vote.

How did Trump get 3? The one they stole from President Obama, RBG and _____?