One of the ideas rattling around the TPOT community recently is "girls need to be more forward because guys have trained themselves out of the notion that they should hit on anything female".
Which, apparently he did pull his mask off to smile at a pretty girl who was being mildly flirtatious, and that does leave me wondering how the day would have gone if she'd written her phone number on a piece of paper and shoved it into his hand. (Maybe not any differently, and not her fault, but someone who thinks there's a good future waiting makes different choices in their life.)
I feel like he's one of those "a dumb people's idea of a smart person" guys, who thinks that since Smart and Worthy people look a certain way and have certain books then if he looks that way and has those books it means he's Smart and Worthy too.
Out West he'd have ended up in MIRI, here he went for something a little more active.
"One of the non-crazy JD Vance coded ideas is (maybe much) higher taxes on the childless. "
aka "tax breaks for parents and families" which we're already doing, and is one of those ideas Democrats keep proposing and people keep deriding as "subsidies for BREEDERS who are FILLING THE PLANET TO BURSTING".
I feel like there's some confusion over the weapons; the "ghost gun" he had when they found him was different from the one he's holding in the photo of him shooting Thompson.
old and busted: this was clearly the result of Republican Trumpist support for heartless profit-focused businesses refusing to pay for actual doctoring and leaving people to die in the street, it's only natural that right-wing policies would lead to this kind of violence!
new hotness: this was clearly the result of Republican Trumpist support for private gun ownership regardless of mental condition, it's only natural that right-wing policies would lead to this kind of violence...
They fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia', but only slightly less well-known is this: never let fans be in charge of a media project!
The whole thing reminds me of the bit in "Jurassic Park" where the lawyer gets eaten by a dinosaur, and the whole theater cheered and laughed, and I saw an article in the paper with quotes from actual lawyers saying "...hey, that kinda hurts."
Americans have a touching childlike faith in men in white coats with letters after their names. Whatever the Doctor Man says is true. Look at his white coat, the letters after his name, the framed documents on the walls, you think they give those to just anybody? If the Doctor Man says I need five million dollars of medicine drugs that make my hair fall out and I gain forty pounds and have to have both arms cut off, well, I guess I'll just buy a wig and learn to write checks with my toes, because surely the Doctor Man would never say anything that benefits him unduly at my expense, surely he's up to date on all the latest medicine drugs and knows this is the best one.
And if the Doctor Man says that I present a risk for complications under anesthesia and he's forced to bill at triple rate for double the usual time because of it, well, I guess that's just how it has to be. And if you want to disagree I'll need to see your white coat and papers from Doctor School, sir. Oh, you haven't got 'em? Well, I guess I know who I'll be listening to about this sort of thing.
My thought about that is the same as my thought about the Boeing thing. I doubt any of the executives really cares that much about a fraud investigation; it's not their money that'll go to pay the fines. Maybe if someone has actual criminal proceedings against him, and even then I'd think that the cost of hiring a professional assassin to work in a major US city probably exceeds the cost of hiring a defense lawyer to go the distance on a white-collar regulatory issue. (Not to mention that if the guy screws up and gets caught, your trial for "violation of SEC Regulation 9408.2(b)(iii)" becomes "trial for first-degree murder"...
One might suggest that the rise of cryptocurrency and Reddit-based traders is the modern version of this, with no intermediary or interpreter between the naked man and the naked market.
Clearly this is all the fault of techbros poisoning the information ecosystem. If you can't even trust a Google search anymore, how can we expect journalists to do their jobs?!
I think one thing is that he's got the idea that the Democrats' ideas here are somehow Nancy Pelosi's fault, and that's not true; they've always been a machine-politics party, their idea being that the public should align itself into a bunch of blocs and then those blocs wrestle over who gets the most benefits, with the Government (run by Democrats) acting as referee for the scrum and bookkeeper for the payouts.
Which works pretty well with Burt Likko's "Three Classes" idea; that there's a Welfare class, which believes that the proper source for income is The Government, and that if someone has more money then the government saw fit to give them more (or, through tax breaks, permit them to keep more of what they have.)
Meaning that the 2016 and 2024 elections were in fact expressions of class war, just in the American version of it which a lot of writers don't understand because they're used to thinking of "class" in terms of hereditary nobility titles to land in Europe.
* Some respondents on Twitter are wondering why anyone would possibly take these deals when Amazon is so much cheaper. This is a really good example of a "let them eat cake" moment, someone who can't imagine why a person without a fixed address to receive shipments or a secure place to store things wouldn't want to get a four-liter bottle of detergent.
* It's amusing, though, that the vendors are complaining about the buyers going to big-box providers anyway, suggesting that their main business was not actually street-dealing for loosies, but rather the people who do have places to live in and keep things but wanted to feel like they were getting a special deal.
* Picking up from that last, I read a book of written-up interviews with an at-the-time incarcerated fence operator, and he suggested that the way he made money on stolen stuff was less on the markup and more on the marketing. The markup for "hot" items was usually the same dollar figure as on legit stuff; it was just less expensive and thus more attractive to buyers. (He did say that one negotiating tactic was to hint that legit stuff was actually stolen, making customers less likely to haggle because they already thought they were getting a better deal.)
The bit about "Harris is an empty suit" is somewhat supported by the fact that between December 2019 and July 2024 she made very few public appearances of any kind, certainly not the sort of training-and-experience work you'd expect from someone who was being put forward as The Future Of The Democratic Party.
My wife has recently started watching reruns of "Match Game", and it's interesting how often Billy Carter comes up as a reference and the whole cast laughs because Obviously Everybody Knows Who That Is, Right?
See also PJ O'Rourke complaining that he couldn't write a political-humor book because if he tried to make it about contemporary political figures he'd be revising right up to print time "and still come up with a book as dated as a Jody Powell joke" (which, reading the book in 1989, I had no idea who Jody Powell was but at least I understood the sentiment.)
"Like, with Captain Hindsight parked firmly next to me I ask myself “Would Klobuchar or Pete truly have failed to catch on in a race with Biden not ever in it? "
(Sanders was even with Biden until those two dropped out 18 hours before the Super Tuesday poll.)
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “From the New York Post: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot outside Hilton hotel in Midtown in targeted attack: cops”
One of the ideas rattling around the TPOT community recently is "girls need to be more forward because guys have trained themselves out of the notion that they should hit on anything female".
Which, apparently he did pull his mask off to smile at a pretty girl who was being mildly flirtatious, and that does leave me wondering how the day would have gone if she'd written her phone number on a piece of paper and shoved it into his hand. (Maybe not any differently, and not her fault, but someone who thinks there's a good future waiting makes different choices in their life.)
"
I feel like he's one of those "a dumb people's idea of a smart person" guys, who thinks that since Smart and Worthy people look a certain way and have certain books then if he looks that way and has those books it means he's Smart and Worthy too.
Out West he'd have ended up in MIRI, here he went for something a little more active.
"
"One of the non-crazy JD Vance coded ideas is (maybe much) higher taxes on the childless. "
aka "tax breaks for parents and families" which we're already doing, and is one of those ideas Democrats keep proposing and people keep deriding as "subsidies for BREEDERS who are FILLING THE PLANET TO BURSTING".
"
I feel like there's some confusion over the weapons; the "ghost gun" he had when they found him was different from the one he's holding in the photo of him shooting Thompson.
"
lol
old and busted: this was clearly the result of Republican Trumpist support for heartless profit-focused businesses refusing to pay for actual doctoring and leaving people to die in the street, it's only natural that right-wing policies would lead to this kind of violence!
new hotness: this was clearly the result of Republican Trumpist support for private gun ownership regardless of mental condition, it's only natural that right-wing policies would lead to this kind of violence...
"
when you do get it done, make sure they actually do it instead of just pretending
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Silent Hill 2’s Remake”
They fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia', but only slightly less well-known is this: never let fans be in charge of a media project!
On “From the New York Post: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot outside Hilton hotel in Midtown in targeted attack: cops”
I'm thinking more Jared Loughner
"
Oh, anesthesiologists? You mean the guys that the Biden Administration specifically called out in its example of the medical industry's unethical billing practices?
"
I'm sorry, did you get the impression I was asking you anything at all?
"
The whole thing reminds me of the bit in "Jurassic Park" where the lawyer gets eaten by a dinosaur, and the whole theater cheered and laughed, and I saw an article in the paper with quotes from actual lawyers saying "...hey, that kinda hurts."
"
Americans have a touching childlike faith in men in white coats with letters after their names. Whatever the Doctor Man says is true. Look at his white coat, the letters after his name, the framed documents on the walls, you think they give those to just anybody? If the Doctor Man says I need five million dollars of medicine drugs that make my hair fall out and I gain forty pounds and have to have both arms cut off, well, I guess I'll just buy a wig and learn to write checks with my toes, because surely the Doctor Man would never say anything that benefits him unduly at my expense, surely he's up to date on all the latest medicine drugs and knows this is the best one.
And if the Doctor Man says that I present a risk for complications under anesthesia and he's forced to bill at triple rate for double the usual time because of it, well, I guess that's just how it has to be. And if you want to disagree I'll need to see your white coat and papers from Doctor School, sir. Oh, you haven't got 'em? Well, I guess I know who I'll be listening to about this sort of thing.
"
"Perhaps there’s some problems with our healthcare system…"
mmmhm, yes, just like 10/7/2023 suggested there were "some problems" with the "Jewish system"?
"
My thought about that is the same as my thought about the Boeing thing. I doubt any of the executives really cares that much about a fraud investigation; it's not their money that'll go to pay the fines. Maybe if someone has actual criminal proceedings against him, and even then I'd think that the cost of hiring a professional assassin to work in a major US city probably exceeds the cost of hiring a defense lawyer to go the distance on a white-collar regulatory issue. (Not to mention that if the guy screws up and gets caught, your trial for "violation of SEC Regulation 9408.2(b)(iii)" becomes "trial for first-degree murder"...
"
One might suggest that the rise of cryptocurrency and Reddit-based traders is the modern version of this, with no intermediary or interpreter between the naked man and the naked market.
On “Joe Biden Pardons Local Man”
Clearly this is all the fault of techbros poisoning the information ecosystem. If you can't even trust a Google search anymore, how can we expect journalists to do their jobs?!
On “Huffpo reports that Harris internals *NEVER* had her ahead.”
"low-information voter" is how a liberal says "black people" without, they think, being racist.
On “Open Mic for the week of 12/2/2024”
Come on, Dave, gimme a break.
On “Huffpo reports that Harris internals *NEVER* had her ahead.”
I think one thing is that he's got the idea that the Democrats' ideas here are somehow Nancy Pelosi's fault, and that's not true; they've always been a machine-politics party, their idea being that the public should align itself into a bunch of blocs and then those blocs wrestle over who gets the most benefits, with the Government (run by Democrats) acting as referee for the scrum and bookkeeper for the payouts.
Which works pretty well with Burt Likko's "Three Classes" idea; that there's a Welfare class, which believes that the proper source for income is The Government, and that if someone has more money then the government saw fit to give them more (or, through tax breaks, permit them to keep more of what they have.)
Meaning that the 2016 and 2024 elections were in fact expressions of class war, just in the American version of it which a lot of writers don't understand because they're used to thinking of "class" in terms of hereditary nobility titles to land in Europe.
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/25/2024”
Comments:
* Some respondents on Twitter are wondering why anyone would possibly take these deals when Amazon is so much cheaper. This is a really good example of a "let them eat cake" moment, someone who can't imagine why a person without a fixed address to receive shipments or a secure place to store things wouldn't want to get a four-liter bottle of detergent.
* It's amusing, though, that the vendors are complaining about the buyers going to big-box providers anyway, suggesting that their main business was not actually street-dealing for loosies, but rather the people who do have places to live in and keep things but wanted to feel like they were getting a special deal.
* Picking up from that last, I read a book of written-up interviews with an at-the-time incarcerated fence operator, and he suggested that the way he made money on stolen stuff was less on the markup and more on the marketing. The markup for "hot" items was usually the same dollar figure as on legit stuff; it was just less expensive and thus more attractive to buyers. (He did say that one negotiating tactic was to hint that legit stuff was actually stolen, making customers less likely to haggle because they already thought they were getting a better deal.)
On “Huffpo reports that Harris internals *NEVER* had her ahead.”
The bit about "Harris is an empty suit" is somewhat supported by the fact that between December 2019 and July 2024 she made very few public appearances of any kind, certainly not the sort of training-and-experience work you'd expect from someone who was being put forward as The Future Of The Democratic Party.
On “Open Mic for the week of 11/25/2024”
"The question is whether throwing some constituency under the bus would pay off."
It worked for Clinton in 1992...
On “Joe Biden Pardons Local Man”
My wife has recently started watching reruns of "Match Game", and it's interesting how often Billy Carter comes up as a reference and the whole cast laughs because Obviously Everybody Knows Who That Is, Right?
See also PJ O'Rourke complaining that he couldn't write a political-humor book because if he tried to make it about contemporary political figures he'd be revising right up to print time "and still come up with a book as dated as a Jody Powell joke" (which, reading the book in 1989, I had no idea who Jody Powell was but at least I understood the sentiment.)
On “I Told You So”
"continue to blame the Muslims in Michigan..."
dude, he isn't *blaming* them.
"
"Like, with Captain Hindsight parked firmly next to me I ask myself “Would Klobuchar or Pete truly have failed to catch on in a race with Biden not ever in it? "
(Sanders was even with Biden until those two dropped out 18 hours before the Super Tuesday poll.)
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.